


Trading Tomorrow

by Darkmagyk, loosingletters



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Book 1: The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson), Brotherhood, Childhood Trauma, Embedded Images, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Good Luke Castellan, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Luke Castellan Redemption, M/M, PJO Big Bang, PJO Big Bang 2020, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Quests, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, canon abusive parents, major character death as backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/pseuds/Darkmagyk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: Percy Jackson arrives at Camp Half-Blood bruised and bleeding, with the knowledge that he's the son of a god and his mother is dead. His little display with the Minotaur has caught the attention of the camp. But he’s not sure it is good attention, yet.Only the Hermes Cabin's not-quite Co-counselor Theseus, ‘call me Theo,’ doesn't treat him like a fascinating zoo exhibit. Which would be a relief, except he looks exactly like Percy: same green eyes, same trouble making smile, same black hair. The only differences are the fact that Theo is six years older, covered in battle scars, and the black tattoo on his arm. A trident and the letters SPQR.Theo is eighteen, powerful, and unclaimed. And his resemblance to Percy could set a dangerous precedent.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson
Comments: 133
Kudos: 1300
Collections: Ashes' Library, Best of the time travel and SI/OCs, Finished111, Not to be misplaced, PJO/HOO Big Bang 2020, Time Travel AUs, Time Travel Fics That Water My Crops, Works That Will Not Leave You Alone, Works Worth Rereading, Yumi treasure box





	1. Percy Jackson

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the PJO Big Bang. But also written because someone had an adorable idea for a fix it fic, and someone is a monster who's response was "fun, but what if it was also angsty." 
> 
> Thank you so much to our betas: [wisdom-walks-alone](https://wisdom-walks-alone.tumblr.com/), [shelbychild](https://shelbychild.tumblr.com/), [amaztim](https://amaztim.tumblr.com/), @graaaceeliz, and [theauthor97](https://theauthor97.tumblr.com/), and [some-dam-french-fries.](https://some-dam-french-fries.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, we got to work the GREATEST ARTISTS OF ALL TIME: [shorty-scribbles](https://shorty-scribbles.tumblr.com/) (art in chapter 1) and [wishuponafandoms](https://wishuponafandoms.tumblr.com/) (art in chapter 2)
> 
> We also made a [ playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0BNxrf84QBtnjE4N48xSVC) and a [mood board ](https://www.pinterest.com/loosingletters/fanfic-trading-tomorrow/) while procrastinating on writing.
> 
> Title from a Fall Out Boy song, because obviously.

Percy was clinging to Grover as if his friend were his last lifeline. Above them, the storm raged on and while the cool rain might have stopped, warm tears still ran over his cheeks. Percy felt like the whole world was on fire. He wanted to call out for his mom, hoping she’d reply and return from wherever she had vanished to. Percy wanted to bury his face in her embrace and forget all about the monster that had attacked them. The wind kept pushing and pulling at him, urging him to move, _move, move_. Grover was getting heavier in his arms by the second, but Percy wouldn’t let him go. They’d have to make it, keep going, get away from it all. Percy staggered forwards until his knees gave out beneath him and he crashed to the ground on a wooden porch. The sound of blood rushing through his ears wasn’t enough to drown out the squeaking of the ceiling fan above, such an absurdly normal object that Percy thought he might be imagining it.

“ _Please_ ,” he stuttered out.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he could make out a familiar-looking bearded man, standing next to a girl with blonde hair. A third man, younger, with messy black hair crouched down next to Percy and put his arms underneath him.

“He’s the one. He must be,” the girl said.

“Silence, Annabeth,” the bearded man said. “He’s still conscious. Bring him inside—”

The world turned black.

X

The longer Percy listened to Mr. Brunner— _no_ , Chiron, the more he wanted to fall right back into sleep and into the welcoming arms of unconsciousness and delayed reactions. The fantastic stories about gods walking amongst humans, magic, fights, and myths were too much. He choked down all the questions he really wanted to ask, the explanations he’d like to hear, and focused on the impossibilities that Chiron presented as daily life at camp. Percy still wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it. A place full of half-orphaned, or fully orphaned, kids in orange shirts doing what, exactly? Nothing about this place made sense and Chiron, for all that he had been Percy’s favorite teacher because he had understood his lessons, didn’t seem all that intent on trying to clear things up for him.

He just looked at Percy like he expected him to know what exactly he was dealing with. It was like starting a new school every year, but worse. Schools, Percy had figured out a while ago. They all had the same underlying structures and expectations, and even if Percy always failed to stick to them, he had known them.

This camp was different. He didn’t know what to think of it, but he was sure that he wished he could turn back time. Go back to yesterday when everything had still made sense.

“Well, then,” Chiron said. “Good luck, Percy. I’ll see you at dinner.”

He galloped away and Percy forced himself not to shout for him to return. He was still holding onto the Minotaur horn, looking like he’d been ordered but never been picked up. The kids standing in the cabin in front of him were all sizing him up, and Percy supposed that, if not for the Minotaur horn, they’d label him easy prey.

“Well,” Annabeth sighed and pointed towards the cabin with a small hand wave. “Go on.”

Naturally, Percy tripped walking up the steps to the cabin and only barely stopped himself from making a scene out of it. The barely-disguised whispers that had followed him around camp during his tour were already horrible; he didn’t want to further embarrass himself as the new kid when everybody else was so used to sword fights, archery, and being the child of an actual Greek god. Thankfully, only a few campers snickered, most of them just watched Percy with great interest and suspicion. They threw him the kinds of looks his old classmates used to give him when they contemplated blowing up his illegal candy smuggling business to take his stash for themselves.

“Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven,” Annabeth said.

“Regular or undetermined?” someone shouted, while a second hissed back something like, “You think with Theo around, he’d be claimed—”

“Undetermined,” Annabeth announced, once more sounding like she was trying to solve a puzzle.

A few people groaned, others shouted victoriously - the whole situation was quite bizarre.

“Hey, give the kid a break.”

The new speaker pushed forward from the back of the crowd. He was way older than Percy and most of the campers in the cabin, eighteen or so maybe, and looking at him felt a little like staring into one of those glasses in a mirror cabinet. He was taller than Percy, had a dark tattoo on one of his crossed arms and a lot of faded scars running crisscross over his exposed skin, but his hair and eyes were a startlingly familiar color.

“Who are you?” Percy blurted out before he could stop himself.

The guy smiled, crooked and mischievous in a way that would get him pegged as a troublemaker anywhere. It reminded Percy, again, of looking in a mirror. Given the way several of his new cabin mates were looking between them, he might not be the only one who noticed the resemblance.

“I’m Theseus,” he said and then, as if it were an afterthought, added, “but call me Theo. ”

“Where’s Luke?” Annabeth asked.

Theo shrugged and leaned against one of the bedposts. “He said something about collecting the Stolls—nevermind, there he is.”

Percy turned around to see a guy with blue hair drag two boys with him towards the cabin.

“Travis and Connor are on cleaning duty for the rest of the week,” were the first words out of Luke’s mouth.

He looked pretty cool, tall and muscular as he was. The scar that ran from beneath his right eye down to his lips made him look a little dangerous, but the smile threatening to break through his annoyed expression softened him. Percy wondered whether having scars was a mandatory thing for the older campers.

“What did they do this time?” Theo asked, glancing at Travis and Connor like he expected them to bolt right away if he let him out of his sight.

The taller of the two sighed theatrically. “We only—”

“Nothing that needs repetition,” Luke interrupted, shoving the two further into the cabin and turning to Percy.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, throwing his arm around Percy’s shoulder and guiding him inside. “Percy, right?”

Percy nodded. “Yes, Percy Jackson.”

“Regular or undetermined?” Luke asked.

“Undetermined,” half the kids in the cabin echoed.

Luke only hummed and looked at Theo again, raising one brow. Percy felt like they were exchanging a thousand words with a small head tilt and a shrug during the few seconds of silence.

“What does that mean?” Percy heard himself asking.

All the people around him were saying so much, but hardly any of them actually elaborated. They apparently got by with short gestures and phrases, and Percy just wanted answers.

“It means that we don’t know your godly parent yet,” Theo replied.

“How can you not know someone’s parent?”

This camp was for the children of gods, right? They ought to know who everybody’s parent was. Maybe there was a dna test of some kind.

His mother had only ever said that his father was lost at sea. Percy supposed that, should his father really have been immortal, maybe the god in question had posed as a fisherman, given that they had met on Montauk. Or maybe he had been some sea god? That shell guy maybe; Percy had always used to collect whole buckets full of them for his mother.

“That’s just how it is,” Luke said. His voice had a bitter edge. “There are some criteria that help pin down who your parent might be, but you don’t know for sure until they claim you. You’ll see their sign then and get assigned a cabin. Until then, you’re staying in the Hermes cabin.”

Percy still didn’t know what that was actually supposed to mean. He must have made a particularly confused and stupid face as Theo spoke up again.

“Hermes accepts all travelers. I’m not actually a Hermes kid, for example,” Theo said and shrugged in a what-can-you-do kind of way. “Just one of the oldest here, which is why I’m helping out Luke here, an actual son of Hermes.”

Another child, this one on the younger side of the spectrum, threw herself at Theo. “You don't know that, you could totally be our brother."

“We definitely know that,” Theo replied and easily scoped the girl up into his arms, causing her to giggle.

“And it would be super gross if he were,” one of the troublemakers - Travis or Connor? Percy couldn’t tell - added, looking a little green.

“Don’t worry, Aime,” Troublemaker Number Two added, grinning sharply. “You’ll just have to wait until Luke puts a ring on it.”

The little girl, Aime, laughed while Theo only rolled his eyes, but was clearly amused. The teasing must not be a new thing then.

Next to Percy, Annabeth apparently finally had enough of the conversation as she snapped, "They've only been dating for a month."

"It’s been 36 days, actually," another kid spoke up. "Remember, Annabeth, you lost the bet. You _still_ owe me two drachmas."

“And two bags of marshmallows!”

The situation seemed to escalate, the situation rather familiar to Percy. Troubled kids, as it turned out, were always down to fight, and it would surprise him if this camp with swords and lava walls decided to reign that violence in.

Luke sighed and raised his hands, calling everyone’s attention. "No gambling," he said, and then finally turned to Percy again. “And stop confusing the new kid.”

Luke looked Percy over like he was trying to measure him up, though for strength or size, Percy didn’t know. The cabin was already so crowded that not even the ground seemed empty, so both options were likely. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t just stay somewhere else. The house he’d woken up in would be big enough, never mind all the empty cabins. Why keep them around if those gods never had any kids in the first place? It seemed pretty stupid to him.

“Right,” Luke said, pointing him towards the most empty spot in the far back. “You can sleep there for now. You can leave your things there if you want to.”

Percy eyed the kids surrounding him and, recalling that Hermes was not only the messenger god, decided to keep his Minotaur horn on his person. It wasn’t like he had anything else of value, and he’d rather keep this harsh reminder that this was real and not some elaborate hallucination.

“When can I leave again?” Percy asked instead. “Like, this whole determined/claimed business.”

That apparently only earned him a round of laughter, some more kind and genuine while other voices sounded almost like they were snarling.

“What?”

Before he could ask another question, Annabeth grabbed his shoulder. “I’m showing him the rest of camp,” she announced, dragging him out of the Hermes cabin.

Only when they were far away enough that nobody could overhear their conversation did Annabeth turn around and speak to him again.

“You can’t just say stuff like that,” she told him seriously.

“Stuff like what?” Percy questioned.

Annabeth must have thought he was an idiot, judging by the way she looked at him. Percy found himself thinking he’d love to actually give her a piece of his mind. He was tired of people assuming he knew what was going on when all he was remotely aware of was the fact that Greek gods were apparently a thing that existed in the universe, kind of sucked a lot, and now he had to deal with them.

“I can’t believe I thought you were the one,” Annabeth muttered under her breath.

Percy probably wasn’t supposed to hear that, but he’d never been particularly good at pretending he was not sticking his nose into other people’s things, especially when they concerned him and his general wellbeing.

“Thought I was who? Look, all I did was stab that monster with a sword, I don’t think that’s very special considering all of _this_.”

Percy pointed into the distance where a couple of kids were guiding winged horses into a stable, but Annabeth didn’t seem to get it. He was starting to get angry. He wanted to shout at somebody, let out all his frustrations that were buzzing beneath his skin.

“You have no idea how many of us want to prove—”

“Is that him?”

Annabeth was rudely interrupted by another girl. She appeared to be taller than the two of them stacked together, and a lot meaner, too, with her face torn into an ugly grimace. It might have been her way of smiling, but the two people flanking her shared the exact same evil grin.

“Clarisse,” Annabeth said, her voice taking on the same annoyed edge it had back in the Hermes cabin. “What do you want?”

“Take a look at wonder boy here,” Clarisse replied. “He doesn’t look like much. We’re gonna pulverize you come Friday.”

Percy had been underestimated plenty of times in his life, but this felt less like Clarisse was insulting him and more like she was way too sure of herself. Kids like that tended to dunk on everybody else.

“Don’t be so sure,” Annabeth hissed. “The Ares cabin is going to lose.”

“Against you and your boyfriend here?” Clarisse teased and all her stupid friends laughed. “Yeah, right.”

Percy didn't know, and also didn’t really care, what they were talking about, but he was done being a prop to their conversation.

“It’ll be easy if it’s just your ugly mug we’re up against,” Percy said confidently.

He had bluffed his ways through several years of school and managed so far, even if he was kicked out of each at the end of the year. He could fake and cheat like the best of them.

Clarisse obviously wasn’t impressed by his comeback as she immediately reached for his shirt collar and pulled him upwards.

“Do you want to repeat that again?”

And Percy found that he did, in fact, want to repeat that again.

“We’re going to win against you ugly, stupid idiots.”

It occurred to Percy that he might have crossed a line only when Clarisse was already dragging him away from the open space. He began kicking and punching, but Clarrise’s grip on him was like iron and wouldn’t budge. Annabeth had said something about Ares, was that her father? The war guy? That meant she had an advantage for sure, but Percy wasn’t one to give up. Clarisse and her friends pulled him into a bathroom and it dawned on Percy then what was probably about to happen.

_No way._

He was not letting anybody stick his head down a toilet.

He began thrashing again with renewed energy, but even that couldn’t stop them. Annabeth was staring from the entrance of the bathroom, doing nothing to help him.

“Like a weakling like you is _Big Three_ material,” Clarisse said and pushed his head towards one of the toilets. It smelled exactly like a public bathroom and all Percy could think of was how much he did not want his head to be anywhere near that. He refused. He wouldn’t let it happen.

Then, for a split second, something changed.

Percy could hear the roaring of waves in his ears, and all that pent-up energy he’d been carrying within him since he’d woken up at camp seemed to explode at once. Then, just like back at the museum so many weeks ago, he blacked out for as long as it took him to drop to the floor while Clarisse and her friends were suddenly doused in water. The pipes of the entire room must have burst. Water blasted out of the toilets one by one, out of the shower heads and the faucets. Clarisse’s friends tried to help her, but soon all of them were running out of the bathroom. The feeling in Percy ebbed away, calming like the warm evenings spent in Montauk.

Percy got up from the ground and wiped his hands on his pants, surprised to see that he was still entirely dry. He looked up and stared straight at Annabeth, who wasn't so alone anymore. Theo was holding her hand, and both of them were dry as well, even though by all means they shouldn’t have been. Percy might have failed science, but he knew how pressure worked. No way should they be dry still.

Theo, fortunately, didn’t see it fit to punish Percy for whatever had just gone down. Percy thought he would have thrown a fit if he did. He wasn’t to blame for this.

Okay, maybe that was a lie.

He was sure he was at least partially to blame. The water for sure, not the whole let’s-drag-the-new-kid-into-a-bathroom-stall thing. That had been Clarisse and potentially also Annabeth’s fault. She’d been the one to provoke Clarisse in the first place.

Theo only sighed good-naturedly.

“And here I was thinking we could avoid that,” he said and motioned for Percy to follow him out of the bathroom. “Luke’s stealing you some essentials.”

He didn’t let go of Annabeth’s hand until they were out of the bathroom. Percy didn’t know why it struck him so, but he took notice of it regardless. Another thing that didn’t escape his notice was the way Annabeth was inspecting him, and the way her gaze drifted to Theo calculatingly.

Clarisse was waiting for them outside, and it looked like she was gearing up to start another fight, completely uncaring that she was drenched from head to toe, but she backed down when she spotted Theo.

“Annabeth, would you finish Percy’s tour?” Theo asked. “I’m due for sword lessons.”

“Sure,” Annabeth replied slowly. “Yes, I can do that.”

Percy trailed after Annabeth, around the back of the Athena Cabin. She paused, looked around, and then turned on a dime and backed Percy up against the cabin wall. She pinned him there with her grey-eyed glare and her forearm against his neck. She didn’t press down on his throat, but the threat was there, helped by the four inches she had on him.

She leaned in very, very close, her lips inches away from his. “What was that?” she demanded.

“What was what?” he asked.

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not playing.”

Annabeth made a growl of displeasure, but rocked back on her heels. Still close, close enough to make Percy feel trapped, but less like she was about to stab him.

“You did that with the water,” she accused, “I know you did.” She threw up her hands, looked up at the sky and opened her mouth, and then seemed to think better of it and glared at him again. “You and Theo both.”

“What does Theo have to do with anything?” Other than being obviously really cool, and making Clarisse back off.

“The water,” she said, then looked at the ground, kicking her sneakers into the grass and dirt. “Always the water,” she muttered, along with a bunch of other things. Some of them didn’t sound like English. But he caught ‘ _stupid_ ,’ ‘ _earthshaker_ ,’ and ‘ _rivals_.’ “You controlled the water against the Ares kids, just like Theo can.”

“Theo can control water?” Maybe that explained why he was dry.

“He always wins canoe races, by himself, and Hermes hasn’t lost trireme practice since he got here.”

“You guys practice with boats?” Percy asked, though he was pretty sure he’d never heard the word trireme before and wasn’t sure how he knew it was a ship.

Annabeth didn’t answer him. “And now you show up, and you look just like him.” Her eyes roamed over his body, clearly taking in all that he lacked as a kind of scrawny almost thirteen year old, compared to a six-foot-tall badass complete with scars and tattoos. “You killed the Minotaur and then you did stuff with water and—” She cut herself off. “We all have grey eyes in my cabin.” The prospect was not a pleasant one to Percy. Her eyes were captivating in their own, terrifying way, but the idea of a dozen kids looking at him like she was right now was definitely an experience he wanted to skip. “And you look like Theo, and you have the same powers and—”

“Theo says he doesn’t know who his father is,” Percy said. “And everyone basically said I’d never find out about mine.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. Weirdly, it softened her fierce grey gaze. “Oh, please. No, he hasn’t been claimed. But it isn’t like the entire camp is as stupid as you are.”

Percy had known this girl for all of two hours, but her assessment stung. And he didn’t keep it off his face.

“Sorry,” she said. And he didn’t know her very well, but it sounded, if not genuine, at least like she knew it was a rude thing to say. “But, come on, he can control water and his tattoo has a trident on it. What is everyone supposed to think?”

Percy thought about those Latin lessons, the Greek gods that he wasn’t really paying attention to. “Poseidon,” he offered, tentatively.

Annabeth looked at the sky with a frown, but then nodded slowly. “Be careful with names,” she advised. “But yeah, basically.”

“And you think I’m—”

“I don’t know what to think,” she said, and she sounded really, profoundly distressed by that fact. Like not knowing something was the greatest tragedy in the world. Percy had the insane urge to comfort her. “He’s not even supposed to have kids and Theo’s almost eighteen, I think—”

Percy didn’t remember that from the myths. Hadn’t it been the other way around? The big guys like Zeus and Poseidon had kids left and right. He remembered one of Poseidon’s sons had been a big deal. His name was…

 _Theseus_.

Annabeth just kept talking, and he missed some of what she had said. “—and they’ve got the rivalry and it just doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Percy could offer.

“You don’t know, then?” Annabeth asked.

Percy shook his head, feeling like an idiot. “What does Theo say?”

Annabeth rolled her eyes again. “He doesn’t _say_ anything,” she grumbled. “He just says he hasn’t been claimed and that it doesn’t matter and all that junk. He’s clearly lying.”

“Why?”

“He just is. Everybody wants to know who their godly parent is,” Annabeth said. “I don’t care what Luke and the rest of camp thinks, Chiron agrees with me that something is fishy about him.”

“Poseidon?” Percy offered.

Annabeth actually scoffed at him, and then turned around to say, “Come on, I have to finish your stupid tour,” before stomping off. With nothing else to do, Percy followed her.

The remainder of his first day passed in an equally thrilling manner, caught somewhere between strange mundanity and refreshing novelty. After dousing a couple of teenagers with toilet water, apparently nothing quite measured up, not even blue coke, ritualistic pizza sacrifices, and the Apollo Apollocabin’s rendition of “Our Olympus” to the tune of “Our House.” The Hermes cabin stumbled back to their overcrowded home, some more awake than others, and Percy made his bed on the one empty spot on the ground with the toiletries that Luke had stolen for him. His exhaustion had caught up to him again, so he fell into a deep sleep, chasing the thoughts of his mother’s kind smile and laugh.

The next day came much too soon for Percy’s tastes. He was woken up by the younger kids’ attempts at quiet playing, which soon turned into loud roughhousing. From everyone’s reactions, he gathered that it was a normal enough occurrence, since some people just groaned and put their pillows over their heads while others reluctantly got dressed. Luke and Theo made sure the cabin was assembled and presentable for breakfast and afterward sent everyone off to their respective lessons. Percy figured he should go with the other two more recent campers who had shown up together a week before him, but was stopped by Theo.

“C’mon,” he said, “you’re not gonna be a fan of archery, so let’s get you started with something else.”

Percy had half a mind to protest; he could be an amazing archer, Theo couldn’t possibly know about any possible hidden talents, but he figured that sticking to the counselor’s side was more productive. He could ask Theo more questions about camp and everything surrounding it. Theo took him and a handful of other kids, one of which reminded Percy startlingly of Clarisse, but nicer, to the big arena. In the far back, another group was practicing sword fighting, and Percy found himself eager to get started. It didn’t look too difficult; maybe he could do this.

Theo got them started by helping them pick out practice swords. His group members were quick to find suitable weapons, but it took ages until Percy found one he could work with. Theo pressed one sword after another into his hand, already frowning before Percy had adjusted his grip on them.

“None of them feel right,” Percy said, “but I think I can work with this one.”

Theo’s expression was almost resigned, like he was personally offended that he couldn’t find Percy a better sword. From what Percy could see, most weapons at camp were pretty standard and similar, like they’d been made in a factory. He wondered how that might work. Did they check into Greek Mythology Amazon like, _yes, I’d like to order 50 bronze swords for the hopeless kids I’m forced to tutor?_ Probably not. Percy had only caught a few glances of specialized weapons. Theo’s sword seemed to be one, its blade was ivory white, the color of bone, and for a moment, when the sunlight hit it just right, Percy expected blood to be dripping from it. It didn’t look like any of the other swords, and there was something almost unsettling about it. Just days ago he would have called himself stupid for thinking that a sword could be disturbing, but this one just was. Theo, however, wielded it with excellency.

He twirled it through the air, blocked strikes with ease, and dealt out harsh blows that would be lethal if not for his precision. Soon after they had started training, they, or Theo, rather, had attracted a small crowd. People drifted to him and Percy was not in the least bit surprised when their training group suddenly grew, a few of the spectators joining in.

“You’d think he was a child of Ares,” one camper muttered when Theo did a particularly complicated parry.

Annabeth’s words from yesterday came to Percy’s mind again. She and Chiron suspected that Theo was Poseidon’s child, and Percy, too. Even though Percy hardly knew the guy, he felt a spike of possessiveness strike him. It was ridiculous, but if Percy had to be any god’s child, he wanted Theo to share a parent with him. He wouldn’t be so alone then in this camp if he had somebody to rely on who could teach him what it meant to be a demigod.

“Percy!”

As if noticing that Percy had started to brood, Theo made his way over to him.

“So, what do you think?”

Percy stared up at Theo in confusion. “About what?”

“Sword fighting. You think it fits you?”

“Uh, yeah.” Percy wasn’t too sure what he should reply.

He thought he was doing pretty well. He understood the drills and even if his sword wasn’t balanced well enough, he was picking up on the stances pretty quickly.

“Great. Spar a round with me, then.”

Wait, what? Percy was nowhere near ready to face someone like Theo in combat, but Theo was just smiling encouragingly. Percy looked to the side, but thankfully nobody was paying as much attention to them as before. Theo had pitted them against each other fairly quickly, getting everyone to work. In between all the different kids, Percy could spot Luke’s blue hair as well. Percy hadn’t even noticed his arrival, but he was busy instructing another group of advanced learners, going by how confidently they used their weapons.

Percy hated doing anything at all in front of a group, and embarrassing himself in front of all these demigods ranked very low on his to-do list, so he was glad he wasn’t the main attraction anymore.

He fell into the first stance Theo had taught them and held up his sword. Theo nudged his elbow up with his own blade, then nodded.

“Let’s go.”

It occured to Percy very quickly that Theo had to be incredibly bored fighting Percy. He did his best to show him his weaknesses without laying him flat on his ass immediately and to help him improve without any bruises, but Percy still got put through the wringer while Theo barely sweated.

“Up and again,” Theo said as he held out his hand for Percy after he’d fallen to the ground again. “That’s the most important part: that you always get back up again.”

Percy took his hand and let himself be pulled up again. The motion put Theo’s tattoo on full display. It covered his forearm and proudly displayed a trident and the letters SPQR written beneath it. The letters reminded him of something; he was sure he had seen them before somewhere.

“What does it mean?” Percy asked.

“What?”

Percy pointed at Theo’s tattoo. “Your tattoo, the letters.”

He had always wanted to have a tattoo. They were absolutely cool, but sadly super expensive, and he’d have to wait until he was eighteen to actually get one.

Percy studied Theo’s face. He definitely looked like he was old enough to have one, but hadn’t Annabeth said something about him being seventeen? Maybe he went to New Jersey, everything was legal there.

Theo looked at his forearm and for a moment he seemed to be far away. He shook his head slightly, as if forcing himself out of a dream.

“I got it before I got to camp to support friends of mine. SPQR is Latin, it’s short for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Roman—”

“Senate and the people,” Percy finished. Chiron had mentioned it once during one of the more fun Latin lessons back at Yancy. They had talked about debating then and he’d made them argue about the prices of the sweets sold at the kiosk. It had inspired Percy’s secret candy business.

“It looks cool,” he said instead, and then, because he wasn’t sure how to continue the conversation, “Another round?”

Theo was more than happy to go along with that plan and immediately began attacking Percy again to work on his blocks.

Percy did try archery later that day, and Theo was right that he wasn’t very good at it. Though Theo wasn’t actually much better, so that was something of a consolation. And even Luke never made it near the bullseye.

And Theo chose him as his canoe racing partner that afternoon.

That was really fun, and easy, and they won by a mile. Annabeth, directing her cabinmates from shore, caught his eye, and Percy thought about what she’d said, about Poseidon.

He thought about it again at dinner, when he brushed some of his food into the fire.

 _Please, Dad,_ he thought, and wondered if Theo did too. He wondered what he was even asking for. He didn’t call Poseidon by name, but he’d seen the empty Poseidon cabin on his tour. It looked like a nice place.

But still, he could see why this might be a nice way to spend the summer.

It didn’t really hit Percy that he might be stuck at camp for the rest of his apparently miserably short life until after he’d gotten settled in his schedule and watched how the others trained and studied. Stuffing math and Ancient Greek down his throat wasn’t exactly Percy’s preferred way of passing time, but the many hours of exercise stuck in-between somehow made it more bearable than any school lesson had ever been. However, it didn’t matter how extreme and fantastic life at camp was, it was terribly easy to adjust to its never changing schedule. Get up, clean up, eat breakfast, train, eat lunch, train some more, eat dinner, sing a song and maybe also train some more in case you annoyed anyone by pretending you could hold a tune. Percy didn’t have a place to return to anymore. He couldn’t cling to the fickle hope that he’d be home by the start of school or even by Christmas, that he’d hug his mom and enjoy the few moments she’d be entirely his.

She was simply _gone_.

And Percy just kept on training in the hopes that he’d survive another day. Luke and Theo were two of the oldest campers and from what Percy had seen, neither really appeared to think of ever doing anything that wasn’t fighting. Sure, Percy had never deluded himself into thinking he’d get into a college of some kind, making it through high school would be enough for him, but he had still wanted to go. He’d wondered about older campers, why Chiron and Mr. D were the only real adults around when the gods had so many kids all growing up.

Or not, he realized while watching an Apollo camper fall off the lava parkour course, their siblings quickly rushing to their aid. He’d been lucky in taking out the Minotaur, everybody said or whispered behind his back when they assumed he wasn’t listening.

Only Theo seemed to believe there had been more than luck to it, given how much he drilled Percy in the fine art of embarrassing himself while holding a sword. He didn’t really feel like he was making progress or learning anything; he was just falling to the ground again and again in decidedly new ways.

“Everything okay, kiddo?”

Percy turned away from Cabin 7’s applied field medicine practice and found Theo looking down at him in worry.

“Yeah,” Percy replied. “I’m just, you know, thinking. Annabeth said I should do that.”

She had also been making fun of his translations at the time and he had been half-tempted to just take his book and leave.

Theo must have known that Percy was not quite lying, just not exactly the telling the truth as he sat down next to him. For a reason Percy couldn’t quite figure out and didn't exactly want to dwell on, Theo could always read him perfectly, just like his mom had. Thinking of her again, he could feel his throat closing up.

“Annabeth is a smart one, you should listen to her,” Theo said. “Don’t get stuck in your head on your own for too long. It’s not healthy, only talking to yourself.” Then he snorted like he’d made the world's best joke.

Percy felt like those were pretty brave words for someone who did exactly that quite often. Theo was a big worrier, much like Luke, if on a different level. Luke was keen on everything staying as organized as it could be in the Hermes cabin, and on following rules, so that nobody got left behind. Theo wasn’t like that. Percy was fairly sure he’d let the entire cabin descend into chaos if it would make everyone happier. He worried about _people_ , all of them, no matter the cabin, which was apparently a little strange.

Percy shouldn’t give him even more work to do.

It was with that in mind that when they went to sword practice that afternoon, he purposefully hung back when people paired off. So when someone else threw himself at Theo for a spar, he, because he wasn’t a total jerk, had to accept it. But he did shoot Percy a worried glance.

Probably because he foresaw the outcome of no one else wanting to partner with him, as all the other kids paired off with friends.

Luke took pity on him. But in some ways, that was worse.

Theo’s help the last several days hasn’t seemed pitying, more like he was genuinely trying to help Percy tap into his potential. Luke, however, was going to use him as an example. Percy had picked up a few basics, but the snickers as he fell to the ground after Luke’s disarming weren’t subtle. Luke tried to hush them, and Theo actually smacked a few people on the back of the head. And he shot some of the older, louder ones a truly intimidating glare, like the one he’d used to get Clarisse to back off. It reminded Percy of a wolf stalking its prey.

But none of that saved Percy’s already limited pride. He was no more a match for Luke than he was for Theo, but Theo had seemed to enjoy himself. Luke mostly seemed to think he made a good example of what not to do.

Luke was pretty nice about it, but Percy was still knocked around a bunch and desperately needed the water break that felt like it only happened minutes into practice.

He drank his water too fast, and then dumped the rest on his head. He was so covered in sweat, you could hardly tell.

But he instantly felt better. More awake, more alert. _Stronger_.

And when Luke tried to disarm him—he managed to disarm Luke instead. The moment passed so fast, Percy almost didn’t register that the blade now lying on the ground was Luke’s and not his own.

No one seemed sure what to make of that, except for Theo, who was trying very hard not to laugh behind his hand. Percy tried to apologize, as embarrassing older kids had never turned out well for him, but Luke was grudgingly impressed.

The fact that it might have been the water didn’t occur to Percy until later. He pushed away those implications.

Instead he stood there, after a few more rounds, as Luke surveyed him with new interest.

“I told you so,” Theo teased, knocking his shoulder against Luke’s. The implication that he’d talked to Luke about Percy’s potential or something was stressful and exhilarating in equal measure.

“I guess you did,” Luke agreed, then when he noticed Percy watching them, added, “I never doubted you. I just said I wanted to see for myself. We need to get you a balanced sword.”

“I told you that, too,” Theo reminded him, but he was smiling. It was Percy’s smile, all bright smugness and cheer. He’d only ever seen it on his mother’s face and expected the familiarity to sting, but instead, it only encouraged him.

“You did,” Luke agreed. He looked Percy up and down. And for the first time, Percy thought maybe he wasn’t just cataloguing all his similarities to Theo. Or, if he was, he was cataloging them and not finding Percy lacking. “I’d say I want to see what happens on Friday night.”

Theo’s face fell. He closed his eyes and let out a long, low breath. Like he wasn’t looking forward to Friday night either.

But what Friday night was, what it had to do with Percy, and why Theo didn’t want to see what would happen was not something Percy got answers to.

Because someone had knocked one of the Hermes regulars over, revealing a pocket full of pickpocketed items, and Theo and Luke had to step in to ensure everything was returned, and the offending party didn’t get jumped by the 20 kids with swords.

He should have pressed on what was going to happen Friday evening.

Every camper had been so excited that morning. Percy could see people sharpening their weapons and fitting on armor all day long. Regular activities had pretty much ceased within the first hours despite the teachers’ half-hearted attempts to stick to them. The Athena and Ares cabins had been particularly active. The former had been running across camp, carrying messages Percy was not privy to, while the latter had redoubled their efforts to be as mean as possible to everyone else without getting grounded by Chiron. Truthfully, besides Theo, nobody had actually even looked like they expected something life-changing would take place that night.

But the full weight of what it all meant didn’t really settle into his chest until he went back into the Hermes Cabin Friday night, after Capture the Flag and getting claimed, with everyone staring at him, waiting for him to just pack his things and go. The rejection stung. Just hours ago they’d been laughing together, and while Percy had thought that being claimed was a joyous occasion, nobody was celebrating.

Only Theo helped him. He packed up Percy’s sleeping back, his toothbrush, his extra camp shirt, and left Percy to carry his Minotour horn.

No one said anything as they marched out, and Luke only nodded to him when Theo gave him a severe glare. Luke’s mouth was set in a thin grimace.

It wasn’t actually that long of a walk from Cabin 11 to Cabin 3, but it felt like forever.

Theo didn’t say anything on the way.

When they got inside, he waited at the door until Percy chose a bed. That motion, too, felt like it took half a century.

The inside walls were grey, the ceilings were low, and the bedding was blue. Percy loved it, maybe a little, in spite of himself. It smelled like the ocean, and maybe a little bit like smoke. It didn’t look anything like the cabin in Montauk, but it felt like it, like home in the same way their small apartment in the city never had.

But it was also large and spacious and _so_ empty. No one had lived here in a long time. That loneliness hung in the air. Percy caught himself being disorientated by it, the contrast to the Hermes cabin obvious. It made him strangely angry. All the other unclaimed in Hermes wouldn’t have to move into an empty space after being kicked out. They’d be greeted by their siblings, and have another pair of hands showing them the ropes.

“You’ll like having an actual bed again,” Theo said, with the knowledge of someone who’d slept on a floor for a long time. He put Percy’s things on the bed next to the one he’d chosen. Which was thoughtful.

“Yeah,” Percy agreed.

Theo looked around the room, and Percy knew the look on his face. He’d seen it in the mirror as boarding school. He was homesick.

It made Percy actually sick.

Theo was like 18. He was powerful and accomplished. He’d been sleeping on the floor of the Hermes Cabin for forever despite probably needing rest more than most of the other kids there, and had been waiting on his dad to notice him probably even longer than that. But then some troubled 12 year old with no skills to show for showed up and stole what little attention he might hope to get.

It wasn’t fair, at all. And Percy wanted to rage at Poseidon about it.

Percy hadn’t been around long, but he knew that would be a bad idea. So he settled for saying, “I’m sorry.”

_I’m sorry our father didn’t claim you. I’m sorry you have to be my brother. I’m sorry I can’t actually be your brother._

Theo smiled. It didn’t look forced or even pained. It was a kind smile, and it, weirdly, reminded Percy of his mom. Theo had no reason to look anything like Sally Jackson; she wasn’t the parent they shared, and because she was dead, he’d never meet her. It made everything worse in that moment.

“ _You_ ,” Theo said, “have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I know you want—” Percy tried.

“Oh, kid,” Theo cut him off. Percy had noticed that. Theo nearly always called Percy _kid_. He’d think it was a device, maybe, a way an old timer in Hermes might deal with a constantly rotating bunch of kids. But everyone else seemed to know and use his name, appeared to be quite quick at learning names, actually, and Theo didn’t call anyone else _kid_. “You don’t know what I want.”

Percy opened his mouth to protest, but Theo shushed him quickly. “You really, really don’t. But you getting claimed, you getting to move into your dad’s cabin, is definitely one of those things.”

Percy sat down on the bed. His bed. Probably his bed until he got to be Theo’s age, or died trying.

“You’ve had a big day,” Theo said, instead of revealing any of his other secret desires. “You’ll get to call lights out, but the harpies can get over-zealous sometimes, and you’re probably tired, so you should get some sleep, soon. Tomorrow, you’ll be able to explore your new home, choose your activities schedule on your own and stick yourself into the best slots.”

Percy hadn’t even thought of that. “I’m never going to learn anything now.”

“Luke and I will still handle your sword training,” Theo said. “I have more to prove to him. It makes the _I-told-you-so_ ’s sweeter.”

Percy smiled a bit. There were lots of couples at camp, but Luke and Theo were definitely the best. They worked together like a well-oiled machine even when they weren’t entirely of the same opinion.

“See, this is a good thing. It feels like a lot right now, but it's what you want.”

Percy had been praying for just this. But then he thought of the accusing eyes of the Hermes Cabin as he’d left. He thought of everyone’s stares after Capture the Flag. Even victory couldn’t keep the sour look off of many faces.

“Everyone is going to hate me after this. No one is going to want anything to do with me.” He had thought, earlier this week, or even just this morning, that maybe, finally, Camp Half-Blood would be a place for him to fit in. Not to be normal, but to find a place among all the other outcasts and weirdos.

But now it was going to be like every other school he’s tried before. Except here, you could fall into lava and die.

“I can’t speak for everyone else,” Theo said, which gave Percy a pretty good preview of what he was in for, “but Luke and I will still be around for you, I promise.”

“Thanks,” Percy said. And had a sudden, strong desire to hug him.

He held back. No matter how much Theo was holding it together, he couldn’t want that from some kid who’d just been handed everything he clearly deserved.

But Theo just smiled and wished him goodnight, pausing at the door. “And I don’t care who your dad is,” he said with a grin, “you’re going to lose the canoe race next week.”

All of Theo’s promises came to pass, but that didn’t make Percy feel much better.

It was nice to have a real bed, but sitting alone in the dining pavilion, surrounded by people laughing with their siblings and friends, was terrible.

And even when he could hang out with other people, no one wanted to hang out with him. The whispers followed him throughout camp.

“It's because everyone loves Theo so much,” Annabeth, who _was_ still teaching him Greek, said after just two days. “And they think you got claimed when he should have been. Everyone thinks that because Theo’s the best at boats, and so great at swords, and so much older, he should have gotten claimed. That he should have gotten claimed ages ago. You’ve been here a week.”

“How is that my fault?”

“It isn’t, obviously,” Annabeth said. “But it isn’t like they can take it up with your father. So you have to accept it.”

A lot of things about the gods seemed to boil down to _accept it or face the consequences_.

Annabeth’s natural animosity towards Theo, which Percy could only pin on the fact that she turned bright red when Luke was in her vicinity, did make her a little more inclined to like Percy.

But most of that was cancelled out by the Poseidon thing. And an ancient rivalry that seemed really dumb.

“There is a spot in Athens,” Theo told him when Percy brought it up, “where you can see the marks in the stone caused by Poseidon’s trident, where he and Athena competed for the city of Athens’s favor.” Almost unconsciously, he reached out and brushed his fingers to his lips.

“You’ve been to Greece?”

“I've been to a lot of places,” was all Theo said, voice stuck somewhere between pride and melancholy.

Percy had never thought he’d get out of the states, but now he found that he wanted to.

Then Theo beat Percy at a canoe race. Which was pretty embarrassing, but in Percy’s defence, he was all alone in his canoe, Ares Cabin was actively booing him, and it had been close. Percy wasn't sure whether his loss made things better or worse. Theo had just teased him about it.

It felt deeply ironic that Theo still talked to him after all this, when everyone else was so angry on Theo’s behalf. He and Grover, when he wasn’t busy with his satyr duties, were the only ones who still seemed to _want_ to have anything to do with Percy.

Annabeth seemed to hope her efforts with him would yield some kind of dividend, but Percy wasn’t sure what that was. Luke seemed to feel bad for him and be upset with him on his boyfriend’s behalf in equal measure.

But Theo always had a smile for him. And he still trained him in sword fighting. Usually with Luke’s reluctant help.

It wasn’t going great.

Theo was still beating on Percy with his bone sword. Before he’d moved, one of the other unclaimed kids, Chris, had said that some people thought it was a _drakon_ bone sword. Drakons were in the book of monsters Theo had given Percy to look over, but he didn’t want to even _think_ about them.

“We need to find you a better sword,” Theo said, after he called a timeout. “Get a drink.”

Percy did as he was told, and then dumped a second cup of water on his head. Instantly his exhaustion evaporated, and the little cut on his arm, where Theo had nicked him, started to heal. Maybe being a son of Poseidon was good for something.

Theo wasn’t breathing heavy like Percy, but he was covered in sweat, and he considered his own cup of water for a moment. Then he shucked off his t-shirt and dumped the cup directly onto his chest.

“Why are you doing this to me,” Luke complained, but his eyes lingered on his boyfriend.

Luke still sort of hung out with Percy, but only because Theo was about the only one in camp who still seemed to like him and spent most of his free time palling around with some twelve-year-old. Luke seemed to decide hanging out with a twelve-year-old pariah was worth it when it also meant hanging out with his boyfriend. But even he had limits.

“You can leave,” Theo teased. “Make sure Travis hasn’t stolen an active landmine again.”

“Landmines?” The older boys both ignored Percy’s question.

“I hate you so much,” Luke said, even as he approached Theo, and leaned in close.

Percy looked away. It was always weird, seeing the two of them together. Theo looked so much like Percy, except for how he wasn’t scrawny and didn’t have acne and did have a super badass tattoo, and no one had suggested he get braces. And seeing him kiss a guy… Well, it wasn’t like Luke was ugly or anything. Also, he had blue hair, which Travis and Conner proudly took credit for, which was a plus in Percy’s book.

But still, it was all weird. And Percy could never pin down why in his own head.

Then Luke wandered off, because apparently there were active landmines to worry about at Camp Half-Blood.

Percy had always been an only child, and he hadn’t ever wanted that to change. He certainly didn’t want his mom and Gabe to have a kid. He was such a screw up, he didn’t think he’d make a good big brother, anyway. But on the other hand, it was really hard not to idolize Theo.

And despite whatever game Poseidon was playing at, it was really clear that Theseus was Percy’s brother.

He was everything a twelve-year-old dork could want to be. Strong and smart and tough. Also, he was super good looking in a way that gave Percy maybe a little bit of hope. Even Annabeth, who was not shy about saying she didn’t like Theo, thought he was cute. She only mentioned it in her quiet mutterings about why Luke ignored all of Theo’s obvious flaws Percy couldn’t really see, but it counted for something.

And somehow, he managed all of that without being a total jerk. Cabin 11 adored him. All of camp adored him, except for Chiron and Annabeth.

But then Percy had screwed everything up by showing up and being claimed by Theo’s dad after a week.

Percy looked over at him now, trying to come up with another apology, when something caught his eye.

Theo’s camp necklace was normally tucked under his shirt, but Percy had seen the leather band poking around his neck.

He’d never seen the beads before.

Without the shirt, he could see the beads. Or, well, the bead. But that didn’t make sense.

“Why do you only have one bead?” Percy asked.

Theo glanced down and frowned, “I thought someone had explained that,” he said. “Sorry, no, we get them at the end of the summer.”

“Annabeth told me about that,” Percy said, “but why do you only have one?”

Theo frowned. “I got it at the end of last summer.”

“But what about before?”

“Last year was my first summer.”

That brought Percy up short. Theo was almost eighteen. He was a real-life adult. Percy had heard that 6th grade was a pretty common time for demigods to begin really attracting attention. And then, from there, they’d make it to camp or die trying. The more powerful you were, the more dangerous it was. And Theo was really freaking powerful.

“How—” He didn’t even know how to really ask his question or if he was even allowed to ask it. “How did you survive so long?”

Theo smiled, but it was very, very sad. They might look alike, but Percy was sure that even on his worst days, even when he remembered his mom and that scream-filled night, he never looked that bad.

“A little bit of luck, a little bit of skill, and a lot of help,” Theo finally admitted. “I was traveling, mostly. With…” he sighed, and raised his bone sword up, holding it in both hands, “with my girlfriend.”

He looked at Percy, a long, searching look, and then sighed again, and sat down on the dirt. Percy sat down with him.

“We traveled and quested and fought monsters together for years and years. She was amazing. A daughter of Athena. She didn’t have any powers but she was smarter than anyone I’ve ever met, and she could hold her own in any fight,” Theo explained. “We had other…companions, sometimes, but it always came back to the two of us.” He looked at Percy. “Since we were your age almost exactly. We fought a lot of monsters and did a lot of incredible things together.”

“Like go to Greece?” Percy asked, recalling Theo’s words from before.

“Like go to Greece,” Theo agreed. He turned over his arm and looked at his tattoo. “And Rome.” He shut his eyes. “And some other places, too.” He opened his eyes and looked down at his sword.

Then he held it up like some movie poster cover. The ivory gleamed in the sun. He wondered what the green leather grip was actually made of. “This was her’s.”

“What happened?” It wasn’t hard to miss the ‘was. _’_

“She died,” Theo said. “She was killed by a monster.”

There was something about the way he said monster, like it wasn’t _just_ a Minotaur or a Fury, but something far worse.

He ran his hand up the sword, and Percy could almost picture it, Theo with a dead girl in his arms. He wondered what she’d look like, and his mind fell on Annabeth, another daughter of Athena. He didn’t like the thought of Annabeth dead. Sure, she was kind of stuck up and annoying, but she was also mostly his friend.

“I’d heard of camp before,” Theo went on. “And when I was on my own, I knew I couldn’t do it. So, I came here, for a safe haven.”

Theo was really good at reading Percy, and Percy had never thought it went both ways. But looking at Theo now, his eyes firmly planted on his sword, Percy thought that this time he could see something else. That Theo was holding something back.

And Percy was pretty sure that whatever it was, it would speak of even more pain.

He didn’t get a chance to investigate it, though. Instead, Luke and Theo both picked up his training over the next few days. And Theo spent most of the other time with Percy, reviewing Greek Mythology and helping him practice the language.

There were no more heart-to-heart chats.

And then Percy found out there might never be again.

A war was brewing, and Percy was at the center of it.

The details were still hazy and unclear as Chiron laid it out. Someone had stolen Zeus’s weapon, the master bolt. Zeus thought it was Percy, on Posesidon’s behalf. Poseidon and Chiron suspected Hades. Percy had to journey to the Underworld to retrieve it or the gods would break out into a war. And so would their children. And so might the mortals and the entirety of western civilization.

No wonder everyone hated him. They were afraid of what his arrival meant.

Luke’s quest had failed, and he had been much more experienced than Percy. Annabeth had been desperate for one for years. And then, two weeks in, Percy was getting claimed by gods who weren’t supposed to have kids and going on a big important quest.

If the idea of it all didn’t make him sick, he would think he was some dumb upstart.

As it was, he kind of picked, was kind of assigned Grover and Annabeth as his companions. He packed up his things, and he visited a mummy in the attic to receive a prophecy of his own doom.

It was all too much. And he didn’t feel like he had a moment to catch his breath until he went to retrieve his pack, right before heading off to meet Annabeth and Grover.

As he exited the green, headed for half-blood hill, Theo was waiting for him.

“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of Percy’s mouth. He felt like he needed to apologize to Theo constantly, now.

“What for?”

“I know everyone wants to go on a quest,” Percy said. “I should have asked you. You deserve it.”

_Also, you’re powerful and talented. And you’ve done this kind of thing before._

“Also, I’m powerful and have done this kind of thing before?” Theo said, even though Percy was _sure_ he hadn’t spoken the words out loud. His perception was always just a little disturbing.

“You still deserve it,” Percy repeated. “But Grover and Annabeth volunteered and—”

“Kiddo, it's ok,” Theo said. “This is not my quest to be a companion on.” He laid a hand on Percy’s shoulder. “If you’d asked me for my recommendations for your companions, which was not something you owed me in the slightest, I would have recommended Annabeth and Grover. Grover’s a protector and satyrs have all kinds of useful magic. And Annabeth has been training harder and longer than just about anyone else here. I know you couldn’t ask for a better crew.”

Percy nodded. The truth was, as much as he admired Theo, and knew he could have been a great help, he also did feel, if not good about his team, then that it was the right one.

But the words of the prophecy came back to him, and he remembered his upcoming failure.

“What else are you worried about?”

“I’m going to the Underworld.”

“Lots of heroes have been to the Underworld,” Theo assured him, “and made it back.”

“I heard that,” Percy said. “No it’s—my mom, she’s there too.”

Theo didn’t even ask to clarify if he was going to try and save her.

“Many heroes have completed impossible tasks,” Theo said. Then, more darkly, “That’s what makes a good story.”

“I don’t even really care about anything else,” Percy admitted. “I wouldn’t even do it if it weren’t for her.”

“I understand,” Theo said, and squeezed his shoulder.

“I don’t care about the bolt, or a stupid war.” He met Theo’s eyes. It was hard looking into them; it was so much like looking into a mirror. Or maybe a water reflection, where everything was just a little bit distorted, but it was still recognizably you. Even though it wasn’t him, it was Theo. And Percy was just a bad copy.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I only got claimed because Zeus thinks I stole the bolt for Poseidon. And now Poseidon wants me to get it from Hades to prove his innocence.” It wasn’t about Percy at all, and it wasn’t about Theo; their father simply didn’t care about them. “He just needs an errand boy.”

Somehow, the realization still stung.

“None of this is your fault,” Theo said, “and none of this is fair. But you’ve got a quest. You’re the hero of this quest. And I believe in you.”

“I’m going to fail,” Percy blurted out. “The prophecy said so.”

Theo sighed, and squeezed his shoulder again, but this time he didn’t let go, so the tips of his fingers pressed into Percy’s skin.

“You can’t fight fate,” Theo said. “Prophecies come true. But that isn’t the same as saying the future is set in stone.” He broke eye contact with Percy, looking up and over Percy’s head, out at camp, probably. “The best advice I have is try not to fight it, but don’t assume you know what everything means, either.”

Percy sighed. He wasn't sure if he believed that. Failure hung over everything about this: his mom, the bolt, the Underworld. He wished he had Theo's confidence.

“I believe in you,” Theo said again.

“I don’t have a choice,” Percy said. “I have to try. For my mom, I have to try.”

Theo’s smile was proud.

And before he could think better of it, Percy threw his arms around Theo and hugged him.

Theo was still for a moment, and then hugged him back.

It was a good hug. It reminded him of his mom’s hugs, the kind you could just fall into. It probably lasted too long, but when he was done here, Percy was going to have to go meet Grover and Chiron and Annabeth and start his quest.

But eventually, Percy broke away.

“Good luck, son of Poseidon,” Theo said.

And Percy felt Theo’s eyes follow him as he went to start his quest and meet this unchanging fate but moveable future.


	2. Luke Castellan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your many comments!  
> We hope you will enjoy this chapter as well.

He felt sick as he watched them go.

He doesn’t much like Percy Jackson anymore, but the kid was still, you know, a kid. And Theo loved him. And he looked just like Theo, so wishing him well was a sort of punch to the gut regardless.

And it would have been regardless, but Percy had to set out on his quest with Annabeth. His little Annabeth, who he could still see in his head, seven and starving. She was almost thirteen now, but still; she was younger than he’d been when he’d met her. She was much much too young to be going on this quest.

And Grover, who kept getting the short (big three, poor guy) end of the stick.

They’d even set off from Thalia’s tree, which just twisted the knife. Annabeth, he knew, still came up here to talk to it, but Luke saw no point in talking to a temporary tombstone.

Because if he talked to her, he’d have to apologize. He’d gotten angry and careless and it had slowed them down, given Hades’s monsters time to catch up with them, gotten them lost in Brooklyn.

And even five years later, he wasn’t ready for that.

Because if Hades hadn’t sent monsters after them, if Hermes had ever done anything, ever, if Zeus hadn’t abandoned Thalia, if—

It wasn’t  _ actually _ his fault, he reminded himself. It was the gods fault. They were to blame for the hardships of their lives. It was always the gods fault. 

But the tree on the hill didn’t do anything for his mood.

What he mostly wanted to do now was hit something. Or slash at it. But for his current mood, his preferred sparring partner would need to be one of those Ares kids who didn’t know when to quit, or maybe one of the reapers of men Demeter kids. And Cabin Four and Five had other activities now.

The arena wasn’t even free for him to attack a practice dummy. Cynthia had her cabin in there. And Apollo kids were, as a rule, no fun to sword fight with.

Cabin 11 was off at archery, which meant the building would be empty. Which meant he might as well just go there until he was feeling more charitable. Sharp objects, rowdy pranksters, and a Luke at the end of his rope might not mix well.

A little girl was the only person in the green around the cabin. She was tending the fire in the center.

Luke had seen her around before, but he couldn’t think of her name or even her cabin.

She looked at him as he strode past and he decided that he didn’t care.

He stormed into the shabby building that was the only home he’d had for five years.

It wasn’t as empty as he’d thought.

It was minorly concerning. If Theo was here, he wasn’t sure who was supervising Archery lessons. Chiron wasn’t even instructing today.

But like with many things, he wasn’t in the mood to care.

Theo was sitting on Luke’s bunk, because Theo didn’t have one, and instead claimed the space on the floor next to Luke for his bedroll and toothbrush.

He didn’t look any different than normal. Messy black hair, scarred bronze skin, camp shirt, shorts, sneakers Luke had stolen him from the camp store. His bone sword lay across his laps.

His eyes, at the moment, weren’t exactly kind.

On the one hand, he looked so much like Percy Jackson it almost made Luke wince at the poor kid’s fate.

On the other hand, that was something Luke was in the mood for: Theseus.

The bed was too small for Luke, let alone Luke and Theo, even sitting upright, but Luke flopped down on it anyway, and reached out blindly to grip Theo’s hand.

Theo let him grasp it, but he didn’t return the squeeze.

“Want to talk about?”

“Not really,” Luke said, trying to pull at him. Both of them horizontal right now would be a very good idea.

“Cool,” Theo said. “What’s wrong?”

Luke groaned, and turned his head to look at Theo. His full lips were set in a frown. It was kind of cute, the little lines that developed between his eyes.

Luke might have been really far gone for the guy.

Theo sighed and shook his head. He was agitated too. Maybe for similar reasons. It wasn’t a secret how much he liked Percy and Annabeth and Grover.

He moved his sword, carefully, his most prized position, always, and leaned it against the wall next to the bed. Then he moved over, so he sat at the end of the bed.

Then he used their joined hands to drag Luke after him.

Luke ended up with his head in Theo’s lap, running his hands through Luke’s dyed blue hair.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated.

Luke told him.

Two years ago, Annabeth had met him at Half-Blood Hill to see him, Daisy, and Thom off.

When he’d gotten his quest, and refused to let her come along, she hadn’t talked to him for a week. Not until they were leaving. But when she had come to see him off, he had been struck by the idea, for the first time, that he might actually not come back. Daisy and Thom hadn’t come back. What if that happened to Annabeth, now.

“I never really considered taking her,” Luke said, eyes closed as he concentrated on the feel of Theo’s long, calloused fingers. “And after what happened to Daisy and Thom—and me. Well, I know I made the right choice. I don’t think she’s ever really forgiven me for it. Even though I’m right.”

“Have you ever considered that if you’d taken Annabeth with you, maybe things would have gone better?”

Luke opened his eyes and stared up at Theo, whose eyes were aimed at the wall, unfocused. Luke was pretty sure he was thinking of a different child of Athena.

“She was ten.”

“You traveled with her when she was seven, and she was good then.” It was a point Luke didn’t like.

Annabeth didn’t like Theo. The reasons were many and varied. Luke found the fact Annabeth apparently thought of herself and Theo as romantic rivals somewhere between hilarious and gross. But Luke didn’t like that she didn’t trust Theo. Regardless of Annabeth’s feelings, however, Theo adored her. He went out of his way to talk to her and get her opinions and advice. He believed in her.

And it wasn’t that Luke didn’t believe in her, because he did. But Luke understood that she was still a little girl.

Theo had spent years traveling alone with a daughter of Athena who wasn’t a pre-teen. It clouded his judgement.

A thought occurred to Luke. He didn’t like it.“Did you tell Percy to choose her?”

“I would have, if he’d asked,” Theo admitted, finally looking down, meeting Luke’s eyes. “I didn’t need to. She volunteered. She’s an intrepid one, your girl.” He smiled.

“I don’t like it.” Luke said.

Theo’s hand stilled, but it was clenched, so he was tugging at Luke’s hair as his smile turned to a frown. Normally Luke wouldn’t mind, but his eyes had gone dark again.

“No,” Theo said. “You don’t like it.” He relaxed his hand, and then removed it entirely.

Luke’s head still lay in his lap, but Theo wasn’t actively touching him anymore, his hands splayed beside him on the bed

Luke had been the best swordsman at Camp for forever, until Theo had shown up last year, seventeen already, all hard muscle and chiseled jaw, battle scarred and battle hardened and battle ready. In truth, they were mostly evenly matched, with Luke a bit better, if Theo didn’t dump a water bottle on himself first. But still, Theo could and had kicked Luke’s ass plenty of times. Theo wasn’t a better swordsman than Luke on technique alone, but he was unquestionably more dangerous and more powerful.

Luke had found himself pinned under Theo in a variety of situations. Some involving combat, some decidedly not. Luke was, um, kind of into it.

He wasn’t pinned now, but the full weight of Theo’s gaze felt the same.

Luke had never been scared of Theo, not really. And he wasn’t right now.

But for the first time ever, he was fully aware of all of Theo’s power and all of Theo’s displeasure at the same time.

Luke wondered if this was what it felt like to be caught in the eye of a hurricane.

“You don’t like it,” and it wasn’t a question at all, “because they’re questing for the master bolt. The Kid’s been accused of stealing it, and he’s going to drag Annabeth to the Underworld to try and get it back.”

Theo’s voice was low.

“I don’t want her to go to the Underworld,” Luke said. It wasn’t even a confession; that wasn’t a controversial take. “I don’t want any of them to have to.” He was still mad about Percy’s claiming, but he was a kid.

“And you, unlike everyone else,” Theo said, “know it’s a fool’s errand. A hopeless mission, a quest they have to fail.” He stopped, letting that fact hang between them.

Luke felt sick again. He didn’t want to hit anything anymore; he wanted to puke. He should sit up, but he was frozen, because Theo was so close.

“I’m not good at cryptic and ominous,” Theo finally said, after a silence that might have stretched on for hours, “so I’ll cut to the chase. You stole the master bolt from Zeus.”

“How did you know?” He should have denied it, but looking up into Theo’s eyes, he knew he couldn’t. He’d been caught. Theo couldn’t have any proof, but he might as well have been red-handed. 

“I’m not a total idiot,” Theo said, which wasn’t fair, because Theo wasn’t an idiot at all. He was probably the best tactician they had in Hermes now. He could size up an opponent at a glance. He could follow along with Cabin Six battle plans. He talked to Annabeth about architecture. “I was at Olympus on the Solstice.” 

Luke knew that. He remembered that Theo had been paying him a lot of attention that day. But there’d been a whole group of them on Olympus. He’d only really noticed Theo because he seemed almost more interested in Luke then his first trip to the home of the gods. It had made Luke—well, it had not been the attention he didn’t want.

“And also, I distracted Ares when he was about to catch up with you after you stole it.” His voice was low, deep and dark and quiet. “Did you know about that?”

Luke swallowed. The—the voice had said something about someone else getting the bolt, and it being part of the plan. But no one had ever shown up, and so Luke had stashed his loot and went on. 

The voice still spoke in his dreams, sometimes. But sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, or didn’t want to, he’d wake up and find Theo on the floor next to his bunk, awake and staring out the cabin window, eyes unseeing the night outside. 

They talked. And Theo was a much better conversationalist then the voice in the pit. 

It wasn’t like he’d forgotten. He couldn’t. His crime and his anger both hung around his neck like a vice. But he had made a decision. And it was to ignore Kronos. 

For now. 

“So,” Theo said, and he moved his hand to Luke’s hair again. Luke didn’t flinch when he touched him. Gentle, calming. “What’s your play now?” 

“What—what do you mean?”

“Your little sister.” Theo called Annabeth that, sometimes. It was weird. Luke had little sisters in Cabin 11, but Annabeth was something more, something forged through promises, not the happenstance of sharing a deadbeat. “And the Kid, Per-  _ Percy _ , and Grover are on a thankless quest. To the Underworld. So, what now? What are you going to do to fix your mistake?”

That was Theo, as blunt as the tips of his fingers running through Luke’s hair. It was one of the things Luke liked most about him. 

Not that it meant he had an answer.

It took a herculean (heraclean? Theo knew Latin. Maybe Luke would ask for an explanation, assuming his boyfriend ever wanted to talk about him again after this) effort, but Luke sat up and met Theo at eye level. 

“I’m not going to Olympus and throwing myself on the gods’ mercy,” he said. Because he’d failed and ruined Annabeth’s life, but he wouldn’t do that.

Theo snorted. “The gods have some mercy,” he said, lips twitching, “but your grandfather is not prone to it. And would not have it in this case.” He frowned, but he also reached out and took Luke’s hand in his again, “I’m not looking to get you killed.” He leaned in closer. His lips just an inch away from Luke’s. Luke could smell the smoke on his breath, still. Theo smokes, Luke knows, somewhere in camp, illicitly. He doesn’t know where. Because if he knew, he might have to be responsible about it. 

Luke spends all his time being responsible. He doesn’t really want to have to be responsible with Theo. 

Despite the smoke, Theo was a breath of fresh air. He knew what it was like out there. He’d faced the monsters and lost people in the fight. He was new to camp, but he was Luke’s age. He knew how to swing his sword, spoke Greek fluently, and could identify monsters on sight. 

Luke had liked not having to be his guide and big brother, even before he’d been taken in by the rest of him. 

“I appreciate it,” he said. He went to lean in just as Theo pulled back. Because he was a tease. 

“But we still have to do something,” he said.

“Like what?”

“You’re the architect of this plan,” Theo said. “I’m happy to follow your lead.”

Luke looked down. “That isn’t true,” he admitted. 

He and Theo had shared a lot in the last year and more in the last weeks. But he certainly hadn’t shared this. 

Theo’s face was impassive. But Luke answered what must have been his question anyway. “I—someone told me to steal it.” 

Theo took a deep breath and several muscles in his face twitched, like his calm facade wanted to come undone. Theo’s annoyingly pretty face was built for grinning and laughing, and even the occasional bursts of anger. But blankness was something he had to work for. Something he was working for now. He must have been very angry. Luke considered it kind of lucky he was trying so hard not to take it out on him. “Who?”

Luke couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t see his face while confessing this. “Kronos,” he whispered. If they hadn’t been so close, Theo wouldn’t have been able to hear it. 

“Kronos,” Theo whispered, no louder than Luke. But he said it with a bitter anger Luke mostly associated with himself and his feelings towards Hermes. 

Then Theo reached out and grabbed his hands, and leaned in all the way for a kiss. It was almost bruising, and when he bit down on Luke’s lower lip, it's hard. 

He pulled back for a moment, and just stared at Luke for several long moments. Then he leaned back in. He aimed for Luke’s neck this time, and then messed with the ribbed collar of Luke’s camp shirt. “I promise it will be something your shirt can cover,” Theo said, “but I’m going to leave a mark.” 

And then he bit and worried at a bit of skin just below Luke’s collarbone for what felt like an indecent amount of time. It was rough and painful and perfect. Luke closed his eyes to the feel of Theo’s mouth on him. 

He forgot about time, he forgot to worry about when the rest of the cabin could come back. 

When Theo was satisfied, he kissed his way back up Luke’s neck to his lips. They kissed, and Theo detangled their hands. He brought one hand and pressed on the bruise Luke could feel forming below his collarbone, making the ache a sharp sting.

He raised his other hand too, but that one was feather light, and he was gentle as he ran his finger up and down the scarred skin of Luke’s face. 

Kronos had wanted more than just the lightning bolt. He had wanted Luke’s body and his soul.

But Luke is sure the revenge Kronos had offered wouldn’t have been as sweet as this.

He was also pretty sure that was just the teenage hormones talking. But he didn’t really care. 

He whined when Theo pulled his lips away. But Theo kept the hand on his cheek, and brought his other hand up to cup his face.

“But really,” he said. “What are you going to do? I can’t keep asking. At some point, you’re going to have to make a choice.” Theo’s hands were soft, and his eyes weren’t exactly unkind, but his words and tone demanded an answer. 

Luke knew Theo had been crossing the country with his daughter of Athena since he was twelve. He never did figure out where he picked up this easy leadership. Chiron had said something about him learning it in California once, and he’d asked Theo if he’d been to San Francisco. Theo said he had, for short trips a few times. Chiron had just nodded. 

But Chiron didn’t trust Theo. He’d made that plain to Luke; he’d asked Luke to keep an eye on him, said he feared spies infiltrating camp. 

It would almost be funny, if it wasn’t kind of disturbing, the ease with which all of Luke’s worst crimes had been committed. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. He leaned into Theo’s palm. 

“I don’t know if that’s good enough,” Theo said, like Luke would say to one of the Cabin 11 kids who was asked to make some sort of reparations as punishment for a prank. “You know you have to do something, right? For Annabeth and Grover.” He pursed his lips. “Even if you don’t care about  _ Percy Jackson. _ ”

He spoke the name like it was hard to say. 

“I know.”

“Do you still have the bolt?”

Luke nodded. “Not here.” He flicked a hand at his bunk. He had a little trunk under his bed that he knew enterprising, newly-claimed Hermes kids liked to break into. This was all the space he had in the world. Kronos had promised him something else, once. 

“Yeah,” Theo nodded. “I looked through your stuff already, back in January.” 

Luke tried not to take that as a violation. “How did you get in my trunk?”

“I actually found Connor going through it. He was going to put a frog in it,” Theo said. “That’s why he had to help Cynthia organize the medical supplies closet in January. I told him to scram, and then I looked through it myself.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re an evil genius?”

Theo looked almost surprised for a second. “Literally never,” he said. 

“It's incredibly sexy except how it's incredibly invasive.” Luke said. 

“You do not get to make me the bad guy here, when you stole the most dangerous weapon in the universe and didn’t even have a backup plan on what to do with it.”

Which was fair. The ease with which Theo teased him about it was almost comforting. He was clearly upset, but he wasn’t going to turn Luke in, and didn’t even seem to want to break up. 

He grinned involuntarily. That was such a stupid thing to be worried about right now. But worrying about whether or not his boyfriend was going to break up with him made him feel like a stupid teenager. And Luke so rarely got to feel like that. 

“What?” Theo noticed his grin. 

“I really like you,” Luke said. Because it was the truth. Despite everything else going on, Luke really liked Theo.

Theo blushed at his words. “Flattery will get you nowhere, right now.” To prove his point, he drew back completely from Luke. “We have to get your loot.”

He stood up and then offered Luke his hand to pull him up as well. Luke only took it so they could hold hands, and when he was on his feet, he didn’t let go. “Loot? Are we 1840s train robbers?”

“For all I know, you could be,” Theo said. “But really, where is it?”

“You know better than anyone that you can’t keep anything important in here,” Luke pointed out. Theo didn’t have much that was important to him. Just his sword. But before he’d become Cabin 11’s favorite camper, someone had tried to steal it. 

His reaction had been swift and painful. Harold swore his pinky would never be the same, no matter what the healers from Cabin 7 did. 

No one had tried any such thing again. 

“Lead on.”

Luke had a few hiding spots around camp. In the Big House, in the Camp Store, in the Kitchen. But his ultimate one, his super secret back up one, was in the woods. 

“Of course,” Theo groaned as they marched in. 

“Scared?” Luke asked. 

“You wish,” Theo said. “I was just thinking I hadn’t killed enough monsters lately.”

Theo was always game for killing monsters. Luke figured it came from his many years as a powerful demigod in the mortal world. And Luke got it. Even two years later, he missed those few weeks he’d spent out there, under his own power. Theo was so easy-going during training and trips to the woods. He was adept at coming across monsters in the wild. Luke remembered with striking clarity when he’d been in the mortal world. Him, Thalia, Annabeth, with no help and a lot of monsters. 

Theo and Luke both remembered the good old days. And they both missed them. Setting off into the woods, your truest companion by your side, Luke could imagine they were Achilles and Patroclus on some great quest, not two boys playing at being men, hiding at a camp. 

“Where are we headed?” Theo asked. It was still bright outside, but he looked up at the cover of the trees. 

“Zeus’s fist.”

He just nodded, but when they actually got to the clump of boulders he stopped in his place. His eyes scanned it, then around them, landing on a juniper tree of all things, before coming up to look at Luke. 

He said, “Where are we going?”

Luke grinned. “Come on, this is super cool.” He pulled himself up to the little fission in the rocks. When he’d first found this place at 14, he’d been underfed and scrawny and it had been easy to slip through the gap, though it looked pretty small from most angles. He was bigger now, so it was a tighter fit, and for a moment Theo was pressed right up against him, until they both fumbled and fell into the cavern.

By the time Luke fished his flashlight out of his pocket, Theo was completely fine, standing up and looking not down at Luke’s collection of stuff, but at the cavern that went on longer than Luke’s flashlight beam. 

“Secret home sweet home,” Luke said proudly. “I found this place after my first capture the flag game. I’ve been hiding out here for years.” 

“No,” Theo said. Luke flashed the flashlight on him. His face was absolutely horrified. “No, no.” 

“What’s wrong?”

“Where’s the bolt?” Theo demanded. He glanced down at the floor, at the little collection of things Luke kept. It was mostly stuff he’d stolen: mortal money valuables, some drachmas he’d earned. Daisy’s sword, from when she’d died on the quest. His winged shoes. Theo bent down and started shifting through it all, rapidly, but every so often he stopped and glanced around, like he was afraid the walls would cave in on them.

“Are you ok?” Luke asked. He kept his flashlight trained on his pile of goods as he kneeled down next to Theo. 

“We need to find the bolt and then  _ get out of here _ .” 

“The bolt’s right—” Luke pointed to his pile, but the giant glowing bolt was not immediately visible, which was weird. “It's somewhere in there, what’s wrong?”

Theo froze and looked up at Luke. He was all deep contrasts in the shadows, but Luke had  _ never  _ seen as Theo as scared as he clearly was now. 

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, his voice low, shaking. 

“A secret tunnel?” Luke offered. “Haden in Cabin 9, um, he was before your time, but he told me once that there were a ton of tunnels under camp, that Cabin 9 sometimes went exploring.” 

“No,” Theo shook his head, and then looked up at the wall, indicating for Luke to shine his flashlight. “That’s not it at all. This is so bad.” He scanned the wall until he found a little carving in the stone. Luke knew about that; it was the button you used to open the door. “Do you know what that is?”

“It is a button.”

“No, the symbol, do you know what that symbol is, what it means?”

“It's a triangle.” Luke offered. 

“It's a delta.” Theo said it was like that was some grave pronouncement, and deltas did look like triangles, so it wasn’t like Luke couldn’t see it. But he wasn’t sure what the big deal was. 

“Okay,” Luke said. None of this made sense. 

Theo looked at him, utterly stunned. “You really don’t know what this is, do you, where we are?”

“No,” Luke said, “but I’ve got a bad feeling about this, now. Where do you think we are?”

“I  _ know  _ exactly where we are, Luke,” Theo said. “We’re in the Labyrinth.” 

That was concerning. “The Labyrinth?”

“Deadalus’s Labyrinth, Minos’s Labyrinth, maybe.” He shivered at the name. “This is bad.” He sank to his knees again. “Seriously, help me get the bolt. We have GOT to go.” 

“Percy killed the Minotaur,” Luke said, even as he got down next to Theo, “so we don’t have to worry about it hiding in the depths.” 

“I’m not worried about the minotaur,” Theo said, not looking up from his task. “We could kill the minotaur. I’m worried about everything else down here. Traps and monsters and gods and—”

“Have you been in the Labyrinth, before?”

Theo froze and then turned to look at Luke with a haunted gaze. He was a million miles away, which wasn’t unusual, but after a second he met Luke’s eyes full on, and leaned forward, as though he wanted to check the color. “I have. I’ve fallen down here, I’ve gotten lost down here. And it is probably the second worst place I’ve ever been. So get the bolt.” 

“I didn’t know you had a problem underground.”

“I don’t mind underground, I mind sentient mazes that try to kill me,” Theo snapped. “Where is it?”

They’d both reached the end of the pile. The bolt was nowhere to be found.

Luke didn’t say anything, but Theo saw his face and knew that Luke had not seen anything to indicate the missing weapon was with the rest of his things. 

“Things can wander off down here,” Theo said, very very slowly, like each word pained him.

Luke had to admit that magical items sometimes had slight minds of their own. He held up his sneakers, the ones he’d been given before his quest. They’d pulled him away from the dragon in the garden when he’d wanted to go further. He wasn’t sure if that had saved or ruined his life.

“Well, it couldn’t have wandered that far,” Luke said, shining his flashlight down the corridor. 

“You don’t understand,” Theo said. “The maze, it can go anywhere. It could be in Greece. I don't want to go to Greece again.”

“You've been to Greece?” Luke knew Theo had traveled the country, but Greece was a long way off. He hadn’t heard of anyone heading for the old country. 

Theo ignored him. “Or it could be in California or Alaska or Boston. I really don't want to go to Boston. Red Sox fans there and Red Sox fans are the second worst because they think all New Yorkers are Yankees fans and Yankees fans are the actual worst and I don't want to be associated with them and—” 

“Theo.” 

He shook himself. But then he stood up, glancing at the pile and then at the delta. 

“We need to leave,” The said. 

“The bolt—”

“Has too much of a head start,” he sighed. “Time works differently down here, anyway. Who knows what time it is. And if we want to go searching in the labyrinth, we need to actually be prepared.” He pushed on the delta so it glowed, and the little opening in the rocks reappeared. With a lot of reluctance, Luke put on his winged shoes and flew up to the opening, lifting Theo up as well. 

It wasn’t dark outside, but the sun had definitely moved. He’d never noticed that with his secret spot before. Luke wondered what was going on with the cabin while both of the responsible adults were off, fixing Luke’s mistakes. 

“Well,” Theo said, “the good news is that I don’t think we’ll get a chance to be punished for what happened. At least not in the land of the living. Because if we wander into the Labyrinth with no plan, and barely a guide, we’ll die.” It was a bad thought. “The bad news is everything else.” 

Theo forged ahead of him, back towards camp. Luke kind of appreciated how Theo talked about all of it like they were in it together, and not Luke having to suffer alone for his mistakes. 

Theo was so distracted that the scorpion almost took his head off with its pinchers. Luke just had time to whip out his sword and cut it off. While it screamed, Theo whipped out his own sword and cut off the tail before stabbing it through the underbelly. 

“That noise is going to attract attention,” Theo said. A sound was already coming from one direction, so they took off in another one. Swords raised now, on high alert. 

They only ran into a couple of smaller monsters, but when they felt safe enough to pause they were in a different part of the forest. 

“Do you know where we are?” 

“No,” Luke admitted. He knew the woods very well, and had a naturally good sense of direction. But in the confusion and exhaustion, he wasn’t sure. 

“Well,” Theo sighed, “the river’s that way,” he pointed, “and the ocean’s that way.” Poseidon should claim his damn son,”So camp should be,” he pointed in the opposite direction. “We can head that way, or we can make it to the river. And follow it.” 

Theo would prefer the river, but it would be a ways out of their way, Luke was pretty sure. He shook his head. “I shouldn’t get lost again.” 

They set off, but something was wrong about the path. Luke was good at finding his way when he kept a clear head. He was a traveler by nature. But though he knew the goal was camp, he couldn’t help but feel like that wasn’t what he needed to find, what he was looking for. They were stumbling down a path that might take them somewhere they needed to be—with demigods it was always need-to-be and need-to-know basis, never asking or giving them what they wanted—but Luke doubted it would be pleasant. He kind of wanted to take Theo’s hand, but that was strategically ill-advised, so Luke settled on keeping his hands close to his body and his sword.

This part of the woods felt so much older than the rest of it, like an echo of times preceding safe boundaries. Luke had come into contact with a lot of old artifacts ever since he had arrived at camp. Hundred year old things showed up every year during clean-up before and after the holidays. Luke had lost count of all the ancient artifacts that had passed through his hands while misting out the gods’ junk, never mind Chiron’s lively history lessons that always turned out to be more Survival 101 than actual history. Not even having been on Olympus compared to this feeling.

“Something's wrong,” Theo muttered, scanning the area. “I’ve never…”

He was laser-focused on their surroundings, tense in a way that said he was ready to jump into battle any second. Luke had never really seen him like this; or rather, he thought he’d already had. Theo got intense when he was fighting and was more skilled than everyone else. Luke thought he’d seen him do his worst when fighting against him, but it was becoming obvious that he hadn’t treated Luke as a life-threatening danger before. Given that he had known about Luke’s theft for half a year, he wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or worried.

Luke wanted to speak up, but he got distracted by a low murmur at the back of his mind. At first it was almost unnoticeable, not any louder than the wind rushing through the trees. He thought he was imagining things. Hallucinations were sadly not as uncommon as one would think at camp. The deeper they walked into the grove, though, the more obvious the rumbling sound became. He tried to make sense of the noise, to figure out where it was coming from.

“Do you hear that?” Luke asked.

Theo nodded. “It sounds like it’s coming from the trees—”

_ —pain from a woven jail. _

Luke froze. The voice was off, much deeper and rougher than the one he remembered, but it still sounded like  _ her _ . There was so much weight behind the words, and that made it hard to push them out of his thoughts. He curled his hands to fists until he could feel his nails dig into his palm, grounding him. Just ignore it, he told himself. He just had to ignore it, everything would be fine if he didn’t listen to her.

_ Fix a mistake—But despair for your— _

He had to blend it out, focus on something else. Theo was still walking beside him, slightly in front of him now as if to provide cover from the front. Luke could watch their back, as he did most of the time during training exercises with the newer campers. Let them figure out how to take down the opponent from the front before they learned how to account for their backs.

_ —final breath—the son of the messenger _

He was in camp, he had been for years now. Hadn’t left for anything but his father’s quest and he had made it back. He was still here, still walking, still fighting, still waiting for a change that wouldn’t come unless someone pushed.

_ May be found— _

He could hear her shouting at him again. She never called him Luke, then; half the time he wasn’t even sure if she had been talking to him at all.  _ Son of the messenger, Titan’s bane, hero and pariah— _

_ —turned you shall— _

_ Sky’s children— _

_ —burn a candle _

_ —scorned _

_ The secret for— _

_ —if one is dead _

“Luke!”

Someone was holding him. When he looked up, he expected to see his mother’s glowing green eyes, or perhaps they were clouded already and she was far away and wouldn’t know why he was hiding under the table, in the cupboard, in his room—

“Luke, hey, everything’s alright. It will be fine, I promise. Just, follow me, okay. Listen to me, only to me. Ignore everything else.”

_ —young lovers. _

“It’s so loud,” Luke hissed. He tried to cover his ears with his hands but even that didn’t shut the memories or the words out. He couldn’t tell who was speaking, who he was listening to. Was it the grove or his mother? He didn’t know, he didn’t care, he just wanted to get away.

Somebody— _ Theo _ , he was here with Theo, his boyfriend, unclaimed son of Poseidon. He was home and they had to get back to camp.

Luke rose back to his feet. He must have dropped to the ground at one point, but Theo was pulling him up again. He didn’t let go of his hand as they stumbled through the woods. The screams turned into whispers again, to the sound of the summer breeze rushing through the trees. His head was getting quieter again, and his mother’s voice was leaving. He hadn’t seen her since before camp and nowadays it felt too often like he’d never lived anywhere else. He thought he had forgotten what she sounded like, what she looked like. Luke had wanted to forget it all. Camp always stayed the same, which made it so much easier to blend out the past. 

They were almost out of the woods when Theo stopped walking. Luke still felt dazed, exhausted to the core, but it was better. He leaned against a tree trunk and closed his eyes for a moment. The entire day had been hell. Luke wanted to do nothing more than crawl into his bed and fall asleep, but they still had camp activities to go through: dinner, cleaning and bedtime stories.

But first they had to deal with what they had just witnessed. There was no doubt in Luke’s mind that the woods had been speaking prophecies, but he needed a second opinion, a confirmation that he wasn’t going mad just like his mother had.

“Those words,” Luke started. “They were prophecies.”

“Yes,” Theo replied. “No idea how, though. I didn’t know there were trees that could spit out a whole prophecy.” He looked back the way he came, and he looked troubled. “And at camp—”

“A whole prophecy? You heard a complete one?”

Theo looked at Luke in surprise, first, but then his expression changed. It wasn’t pity, Theo never looked at anyone like he pitied them. He was able to understand and empathize without belittling anyone’s limits or failures.

“I did,” Theo said. “I think it’s for us.”

“What did it say?”

Theo observed Luke a little while longer, then he ran his fingers through his hair, sighed and began to speak:

_ Son of the sea god twice scorned  _

_ Shall awake with the rise of a storm _

_ The Son of the messenger's stolen loot _

_ May be found among the lord’s fruit.  _

_ Fix a mistake must the young lovers _

_ The god who has turned you shall uncover _

_ The secret for which you long have bled  _

_ Two can keep the secret if one is dead _ . 

Luke swallowed. “That doesn’t sound too good.”

Prophecies rarely had a positive outlook on life and reassured exactly nobody that their fate would be a kind one, but nothing about this assured Luke they’d even make it out of this alive.

Theo grimaced and began fiddling with the hilt of his sword. It was a nervous tick Luke had picked up on a while ago. Theo was an excellent liar, could keep a smile on his face and pretend everything was alright well enough to fool even an Apollo kid. (Who were all terrible liars, but quite skilled knowing when somebody wasn’t entirely honest with them.)

“Prophecies never do,” Theo finally said.

Luke wanted to ask how he knew. Had he encountered other oracles before in his years travelling before he’d made it to camp? Maybe a prophecy had guided him. Luke tried to remember if he knew of any other oracles beyond the one they kept in the attic, who had once made a home in delphi. Maybe not, but he knew that Ancient Greece had been full to bursting with seers. That had to count for something. 

“We need to head back, it’s getting late. The others will wonder where we’ve been.”

It wouldn’t surprise Luke if one of his dear siblings would make an inappropriate comment. Gods knew they’d been terrible about it for weeks already.

“Yeah, we should get going,”Luke agreed.

They had missed lunch. But afternoon activities were well underway and only Connor was waiting for them in Cabin 11. He was eleven years old, but he climbed on the bed he and Travis had managed to score so he was taller than them. “Where have you two been?” he asked,.“We’ve been worried sick.”

“That’s not really your business,” Luke said while Theo actually wrapped his arms around Connor’s legs and dropped him on the floor. The kid let out an indignant squeak, but he landed on his feet, because he was actually good at fighting when he bothered to try. 

“Where is everyone?”

“Travis took everyone to afternoon activities,” Connor accused, “when neither of you showed up at lunch. And I waited here, to wait for your safe return.” 

Theo glanced at Luke and raised an eyebrow. Theo had been insisting for a year that Connor and Travis could be productive members of camp, and not just pains in the ass, if they were occasionally given responsibility. Theo believed people rose to the occasion. He was also pretty smug when proven right. 

“I’m impressed,” Luke said, “that you were willing to skip foot racing, to let Chris or Travis win, just so you could wait here with us.” 

He could see Connor’s eye twitch. The kid was clever and very soon this kind of manipulation would stop working on him. Travis was getting really wise. But Connor was about ready to bolt. 

“I mean, if you run all the way from here, and still win—” Theo trailed off, but the implication was there. He didn’t need telling twice. Connor took off. 

Then they were alone again. Theo frowned down at his shirt and glanced at the dingy mirror on the cabin wall. He looked like he’d been through the woods, and Luke didn’t look much better. 

“Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to finish the day out and deal with it tomorrow?” Theo asked.

“If it’s lost in the labyrinth—”

“A day isn’t going to make any difference,” Theo said, and then he paused, thinking. He went over to his little bedroll and backpack and took out one of the notebooks he used for school. Then he rummaged through Luke’s stuff, and it became obvious he was looking for something to write with when he pulled out a pen. For just a second he stared at the pen, then he scribbled on page and ripped it out of the notebook. He looked at it for a few minutes, eyes scanning back and forth. Then he smiled.

He didn’t explain himself, just looked up and said, “The showers are empty, I might just step under for a moment.”

The only time Theo had used his powers of drying things off with regards to Luke had been when he dried Luke’s hair after the prank that had turned it blue. That had ended with their first kiss, but otherwise he’s only seen it alluded to. He’d jump out of the lake wet after a swim, and run his towel once over his hair, and be completely dry.

“That’s good for you.” 

“I’d say you could join, but that’s against the rules, and I know how you feel about rule breaking,” Theo teased. 

If he was teasing, he felt better. “Getting caught undermines our authority,” Luke pointed out. He shook his head. “You’re in a better mood.”

“Yes,” Theo agreed. “Yes I am.” He handed Luke the paper, the top was written all in Greek, but it might have been German for all Luke understood a discussion of salt water vertebrates. But the bottom was written in English. Luke had to scan it a few times to make sure he knew what it was. Kids of Hermes were naturally adept at speaking all sorts of languages, but Luke had gotten the dyslexia really bad, and had never mastered any of them in written form. 

“The prophecy?”

“Yep,” Theo said. “I don’t know what all of it means yet, we’ll have to figure that out. But it doesn’t mention the labyrinth, and so I think we get to skip that.” Theo leaned over and kissed him. “I’m going to go wash the weird prophecy grove off, and then I’m going to lead pegasus riding. You should go make sure no one gets shot at archery.” He patted Luke’s hand. “And then at free time before dinner, maybe we’ll have some better idea of what it all means.” 

He left, but Luke stayed. Foot racing wasn’t over yet. He had time before he had to make it to archery and pretend he’d been doing his job all day, or just sneaking off with his boyfriend like a normal camper, not searching for the most powerful weapon in the universe that he stole and then lost. 

Luke looked down at the prophecy and read the lines again. 

And again. 

As he read them, an idea began taking shape. He was mentioned in this prophecy. Normally he hated being called a son of Hermes. It was true, and it was common, but he hated his dad. But the Son of the Messenger, who had stolen something. A son of the sea god. Two young lovers. Luke blushed and took great comfort in the fact that he was alone. 

This wasn’t about going into the Labyrinth. But even if it had been, Luke wouldn’t have minded. 

He was going to be late for archery, but he almost didn’t care. He raced out of the room and for a second, considered using his flying shoes. But that might get him weird looks. Instead, he ran on foot. He was very fast, even without using his powers. But he paused when he saw Theo stepping out of the showers, dry as a bone. 

“You’re in a better mood too,” were his first words. 

“I figured it out,” Luke said.

“The whole prophecy, already?”

“Yes, well no, not what it means,” Luke said. “But don’t you get it? It’s a quest. You and I have an oracle-given quest.” 

“Yeah,” Theo nodded, “we know that.” 

“But can you imagine. Theo, I got a quest once, it was a stupid repeat and I failed and it didn’t even matter.” He held up the notebook paper. “But this, this is a new quest. I’ve got a second quest. You and I can do this together.” 

He wasn’t sure he could put it all into words. Another quest, a divine prophecy to guide them. 

Luke had been given a second chance. A chance to prove his worth as a hero. A great quest for the fate of the world. 

“No one ever goes on two quests,” Luke whispered. 

Theo frowned, looking at the paper and then at Luke. 

“It’s redemption.” Luke said, and he raised his hand, managing to just stop himself before he touched his scar. 

Theo completed the action. 

“Redemption,” he said, he leaned in for another kiss, but broke it off before Luke could deepen it. “We’re going to be late,” he said. “But let's see if we can crack this prophecy. And maybe even see if we can figure out what that grove was and where it came from. And then we can find the damn bolt.” 

Luke was bad enough at archery that he didn’t even really try at the actual task. He tried to manage his half of the cabin, encouraging Micheal Yew, who was very new and very good, in hopes that his skill might get Apollo to notice him, and making sure no one shot anyone, on purpose or by accident. 

And he thought about the prophecy.

_ Son of the sea god twice scorned:  _ well that was easy. Theo was clearly the son of the sea god, and he’s been scorned by his father, not claimed or sent on the great quest.

_ Shall awake with the rise of a storm:  _ that was also easy, though much less pleasant. He liked thinking about Theo. He didn’t like thinking about the voice. He didn’t think Kronos had a lot to do with storms, but it could be metaphorical. Or it could be one of his allies. 

_ The Son of the messenger's stolen loot:  _ him, then. A son of Hermes and a thief. __

_ May be found among the lord’s fruit.  _ That was the line that actually got interesting. It not only said  _ may  _ be found, but found among the lord’s fruit. There were a lot of Lords. But the bolt belonged to only one of them, and there were storms that have been raging since the beginning of the year. Zeus’s fruit. Well, it wasn’t like all the gods didn’t love to have innumerable mortal lovers, back in the day, but no one managed it like Zeus. His fruit. And there was only one left at camp. Not alive and not quite dead.

The rest of it didn’t really matter. Secrets and gods who turned. That was for later; it had to be. Because Luke knew where to find the bolt. 

He couldn’t tell Theo after activities, though. It was free time, but Butch said he left after pegasus practice and hadn’t mentioned where he was going. Luke had to oversee the troublemakers (and Hermes always had a few) and do a quick cabin clean up. 

Theo showed up at dinner an hour later. He looked contemplative as he slid into his usual spot next to Luke. He didn’t even laugh along with the table when they giggled at the very brief kiss they shared. 

“You alright?” Luke asked, after half-heartedly burning some of his barbeque. 

“Yeah,” Theo nodded, “I’ll tell you later.” He eyed the other campers, and then plastered a smile on his face and started asking about who had won foot racing and who had been the best at archery. 

They led Cabin 11 to the campfire after dinner. They sat behind everyone else, ostensibly to be able to spot any trouble makers, but really to be away from focus. While everyone else laughed and sang, they talked in the low light. 

“Have you ever heard of Dodona?” Theo asked, looking off into the woods.

Luke considered. “Maybe—” he said. “Does it have something to do with the Argonauts?”

Theo nodded. “The Argo,” he said the ship's name like it was painful, “had the gift of prophecy, because it had a piece of wood from Dodona. It was a sacred grove, and priests and priestesses used to listen to the rustling of branches to get prophecies.” 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that,” Luke admitted. He’d been around camp for a long time, but he’d only ever heard of prophecies from the Oracle.

Theo nodded. “I’ve never heard of anything like it,” he said. “I knew there were other prophecies; augury, the Sibylline Books—” he cut himself off. Luke had never heard of either of those things, either. He watched Theo look down at his tattoo and shake his head. “Well, you know there were a bunch of seers, once.” 

“I met a son of Apollo,” Luke said, slowly, remembering the fire that had killed Hal. He’d met Annabeth that night, given her Hal’s dagger. He’d promised it would always protect its wielder. He hoped that was still true. “Who could see the future.” He held onto what Hal had said about Thalia, sleeping, still, but coming back, with all ten fingers. 

Theo nodded. “Yeah, lots of ways to predict the future. But Dodona. It is here, it's at camp, and I’ve never heard a whisper of it.” 

“I’ve been here longer than you,” Luke reminded him, “and I hadn’t seen it either.” He glanced at Chiron, who was mostly failing to harmonize to the chorus of  _ Down by the Aegean _ . “Do you think anyone else knows?”

“No,” Theo said with certainty. “No, just us right now.” He looked at the flames. For an instant, they leapt blue. Not the white blue of too-hot fire, but the kool-aid color of Luke’s own hair. The fire had long responded to the mood of the camp, but that seemed to be all Theo. No one liked blue as much as him. “I don’t know what it means.” 

“We can figure it out,” Luke promised, taking his hand and squeezing. “Together.”

“Together,” Theo whispered, not looking at Luke. The light was dim, but he could see the campfire, back to orange-red-yellow flames, reflecting in Theo’s green eyes. And by the glassy sheen, he looked a little bit like he wanted to cry. “We—we should look at the prophecy. That’s what we need to figure out.” 

Luke dug the paper out of his pocket, but it was almost impossible to see in the campfire light. It didn’t matter, though; Luke remembered the words. 

“I had an idea about that,” he said. “The whole  _ Son of the messenger's stolen loot/May be found among the lord’s fruit./Fix a mistake must the young lovers _ thing.”

“Oh gods,” Theo said. 

“What?”

“It called us lovers.” 

Luke could feel himself blush, and was grateful for the dark as cover, “I mean—” he offered. “We—are.”

Theo was Luke’s first, but not the other way around. Wasn’t he the one who was supposed to be more embarrassed about that? 

“I know,” Theo said, then leaned in and gave Luke a quick kiss. “But the Grove of Dodona, it was sacred to Rhea. Like the Titan, mother of the eldest olympians, that Rhea.” 

“Okay.” 

“Meaning your great grandmother and my grand—my something knows about our sex life. And is sending us prophecies about it.” 

“Oh gods,” Luke repeated. He glanced around at his cabin. Just a moment ago nothing had seemed worse then all his young charges knowing. The gods really couldn’t not stick their nose in any place and ruin anything. 

“Yeah.” 

“At least if it was Apollo’s prophecy, you can figure he’d be kind of into it.” 

“You think you are making it better,” Theo said. “You are not.” 

And then their eyes met, and they had to let go of their clasped hands to make fists and shove them into their own mouths to stifle giggles. 

They might not have gotten away with it, except for at that moment, in the front row of the Hermes Cabin, in dazzling gold, a lyre appeared above Michael Yew’s head. 

The commotion of standing up and kneeling gave them cover, and the following excitement from Cabin 7 claimed a new one of their own. And a little extra floor space in Cabin 11 was going to be a very good thing. 

“Do you think by using his name, we called attention to ourselves, and he remembered Michael?”

“Again, not making it better,” Theo said. “What idea did you have?”

“The Lord’s fruit,” Luke said. “That has to mean Z—” He cut himself off, remembering what had just happened with Apollo. “That means the Lord of the Sky, right?”

“Or a god of fruit,” Theo shot a look at Mr D.

“Well, I think it's the Lord of the Sky, and fruit, that means kids, right.” 

“He doesn’t have any kids at camp.” 

“Yes,” Luke said. “Yes, he does.” He turned and pointed towards half-blood hill and the tree. 

“You think the bolt might be hidden somewhere around Thalia’s tree?” Theo asked. “It seems a little… obvious and too easy to stumble on. Surely somebody would have already found it if it was just lying around there.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Luke replied. Nothing ever went according to plan as soon as somebody began to question it. “And yes, I know, but the old stories are full of rather on-the-nose occurrences, so maybe this will be the same. I don’t really see another option; like you said, there isn’t another child around the bolt could disappear to.”

For a moment, Theo looked taken aback as if the thought of another child of Zeus hadn’t occurred to him before. Luke had wondered about it since his suspicions about Theo’s parentage had begun to accumulate. Hades had been enraged by Thalia’s existence and the amount of monsters chasing them had been appropriately large. Granted, they’d never been stuck out on the open sea in Poseidon’s domain, but even so, the other god hadn’t been hunting them. If he was too busy thinking of his own broken oath, maybe that had been the reason for it. But now Poseidon had two children running around, massively ruining the power balance of the Olympians. It wouldn’t be surprising if Zeus would have retaliated.

“Okay, good,” Theo mumbled. “First stop is Thalia’s tree then. Toni-night tonigh—” Theo cut himself off with a yawn twice. “Ok, it's been a long day.” The campfire was winding down and Cabin 11 was getting a little bit antsy again. “It's been a long day, so tomorrow, after lights out. We probably need sleep for what’s coming, whatever that is.” 

Luke contemplated whether they wouldn’t have the chance to sneak away during the day, but most likely that would be impossible. Finding a new place to stash the bolt in broad daylight would also only cause further troubles, so going by nightfall really was the best option, even if it meant having to navigate across the cabin with a dozen children lying on the floor, sleeping. Luke hadn’t tripped over anybody in years, but on some nights one woken up camper meant a completely awake cabin and that wouldn’t be particularly fun for anybody. At least Michael would be gone.

“After lights out,” Luke finally agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will continue to update every three days. For those who wonder about the changed chapter count, we decided to break one chapter up.  
> Thank you for reading! We'd love to hear what you think!


	3. Luke Castellan

The day passed horribly slow. It seemed to Luke as if every single Hermes camper had decided to be on their worst behavior. The gods were conspiring against them, there was no other explanation for the sheer unreasonable amount of pranks, tantrums, injuries and school work Luke had to look over. Not even Theo was spared from all the activities, though he did hold back a little more than usual. He wasn’t so chatty and appeared to be more focused. 

When nightfall finally approached, Luke was eager to get everyone into bed, but even that seemed to drag out. He dropped into his own bed, exhausted and high-strung at the same time. He waited until everyone’s breathing had evened out to reach for the shoes he had stuck beneath his pillows earlier. He sneaked out of the cabin on bare feet, mindful not to step on any hands or toes. Once outside, he walked past the cabin to its side so anyone sneaking out at night wouldn’t be able to spot him. He put on the shoes and waited until Theo stumbled out of the cabin. It took roughly fifteen minutes for him to show up, sword attached to his hip, hair messed up just so that Luke would rather take him to bed again than trek through the darkness.

“Not the usual sleepover activity, but I guess it’ll do,” Theo said, eyeing Luke.

Luke became keenly aware of the fact that he was still wearing his sleeping clothes, but it wasn’t like Theo was off any better. At least Luke’s pants didn’t have Nemo print.

“Let’s just get going,” Luke said, hoping the tension would wear off as soon as they got moving.

The trek to Thalia’s tree seemed impossibly long. Luke used to spend hours beneath the tree’s shade when he had arrived at camp. Everything had changed so rapidly; his best friend was gone, paying for a crime she never committed, and Annabeth suddenly had plenty of real siblings looking after her and didn’t need him anymore. Back then, Luke had still believed that the gods could change. That Zeus might magic her better, heal Thalia in some grand gesture like the stories of old talked about. He’d been so naive, unable to understand Chiron’s pitying looks. Sometime in the last years, the tree had become a place he loathed to go to, a monument to the failings of their oh-so-mighty and disinterested parents. Being healthy and alive when Thalia was forever frozen just felt wrong.

When they made it to the tree, both of them just stood there, staring at it. It certainly didn’t look like it was hiding anything. Theo kneeled down and inspected the roots.

“Nothing here,” he announced. “Maybe up there?”

He looked upwards to the tree’s crown. Luke was starting to get a bad feeling. The bolt had to be here, there was no other option.

“I’ll check,” Luke said. “Maia!”

The shoes Hermes had given him grew wings. Theo eyed them with distaste. Not a real surprise given who his father was. Thalia hadn’t been particularly fond of swimming; Theo likely detested being Zeus’s domain as well. Luke flew up along the tree’s side. He inspected every branch, but none of them carried the bag he had previously stashed the bolt in. They were just simple tree branches, growing and thriving in place of the girl who should actually be here. Anger took a hold of Luke. There was nothing just about their situation, but nobody was taking those responsible to court. Briefly, he wondered how that would look like to mortals _. I want to charge the entire Greek pantheon with child abandonment and murder and about a thousand different issues, maybe start paying me reparations for all the hours I wasted assuming you actually cared?_ Yeah, no.

“Found anything?” Theo called up.

Luke shook his head, then, realizing that Theo likely couldn’t see it in the darkness, began his descent again.

“No,” he said when he reached the ground. “Nothing.”

Theo sighed tiredly and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Should have guessed,” he said when he opened them again. “This was too simple.”

“It was a good idea,” Luke insisted. “This is the only place where a Child of Zeus is…”

Thalia wasn’t dead. Hal had all but said so years ago. The rest of camp might be content honoring Thalia’s sacrifice but Luke wasn’t ready to give up on her yet.

“Sleeping?” Theo suggested, once more looking at the roots. 

Luke looked at Theo. They’d never talked about Thalia beyond the basics: Luke ran away because home was terrible. He met Thalia, he met Annabeth, and Thalia sacrificed herself. Luke has told his boyfriend every detail of his failed quest. But something about Thalia seemed closer, quiet.

When they’d first arrived, Luke had told anyone and everyone that Thalia wasn’t really dead. That she was a tree but that she’d come back. No one had listened. They’d mostly listed all the people who’d been stuck as plants forever. Chiron had tried to be nice about it, reminding Luke that he was right about her not being dead, but not about there being any hope. And the whole thing had caused poor little Annabeth so much stress. So he’d shut up about it. 

He’d never told Theo, and no one else would have either. 

“Yeah,” Luke agreed. “She’s sleeping.” He looked at Theo in the waxing moonlight. Did he even understand what he was doing? “No one else knows, no one else believes, but she’s not trapped in there forever. She _can_ come back. I know she can.” 

Theo’s eyes went wide, and he stared at Luke for a long moment. Luke could practically see the gears shifting in his brain. But Luke didn’t know what he was thinking. He so often didn’t with Theo. 

“You know,” he finally said, and he looked at the tree. “You know she can come back.” 

“I wish Chiron would listen to me,” Luke admitted. “Maybe even help me find a way to save her.”

“We—” Theo swallowed, “We can work on that, after we find the bolt and prevent the collapse of Olympus into warring chaos.” He shook his head. “But I don’t think it's here.” 

Luke agreed. “I guess we go to bed?”

“Yeah,” Theo said as they set off back towards the cabin. Luke took the lead. Traveling and sneaking around were second nature to him. He hated his own nature a lot of the time. “You’re annoyingly competent,” Theo whispered as they both stopped at the dining pavilion, each of them hiding between a pillar, still as a greek statue. 

“Occasionally,” Luke agreed. The worst part was definitely how much he _enjoyed_ it. Maybe that was one of the reasons he’d agreed to steal the bolt in the first place. He liked being clever and sneaky from time to time, and all demigods were always striving to prove themselves in some way. He hated it because he hated Hermes, but he couldn’t lie to himself and say he wasn’t having fun. There was a reason that whenever a new kid showed up at camp in need of supplies, Luke stole them instead of doing anything else. 

“One day we’re going to go out on the open ocean and I’m going to be all hot and impressive and you’re barely going to resist jumping _me_ ,” Theo muttered. 

The idea of Theo jumping him now was very very intriguing. But the harpies were still patrolling, and that was liable to get them eaten. 

“I look forward to that day.” They slipped into the cabin, Luke using his powers to prevent the door from squeaking. He only kept it squeaky in hopes of catching newcomers from trying to escape. Before he’d been head counselor, he'd watched someone sneak out the door after lights out and get devoured by a harpy. Kid never even got claimed. Luke didn’t know if he had anyone at home waiting for him. 

Cabin 11 wasn’t quiet. Too many kids breathing, weezing, snoring, shifting. No one looked to be having a nightmare, but a few of the older ones were good at holding themselves still through it. Theo was one of them, actually. 

They tiptoed back to their corner. And for a moment he considered asking Theo to crawl to bed with him. The idea of sleeping next to him, feeling his heartbeat against Luke’s body, was something he so desperately wanted. Thalia’s tree took a lot out of him. Just like the prophecy had yesterday. 

But they wouldn’t really fit, and they would 100% be caught by the rest of the cabin in the morning. Luke would have to bid his authority goodbye, so he didn’t suggest it. Instead, he crawled into his bunk, and Theo zipped up his sleeping bag. But Luke slept on the edge, so his hand could hang down, and Theo reached out to grasp it. 

He did not dream of the Kronos in the pit, but he dreamed of other things. His mother and a kitchen full of moldy sandwiches. Hal grasping Thalia’s hand and predicting lonely sleep, but freedom and a reunion. He and Annabeth cresting half blood hill. Then Theo doing the same, draken bone sword in one hand, spoils of war in the other. He really had looked like he stepped right out of some terrible movie about Greek heroes as he walked down camp to the Big House. And then things he didn’t recognize: a girl in a cavern, pulling rocks down on herself. A blond toddler crying in dark ruins, glowing eyes in the distance, a little boy trapped in a building on fire, two little girls screaming as one threw a sword at a ghost, turning it to dust. Two children, a boy and a girl, playing, and then a cold black force field surrounding them. 

“I don’t want to see this.” He heard the words whispered beside him, and after a quick search he found the voice. Theo stood there too, dressed in camp clothes, but lacking his gleaming white sword. Watching the children as the force field disappeared, and all four of them staring at a woman, her body destroyed by the rubble of a fallen building. “This already happened.” 

“Theo.” The man jumped, looking at Luke, and the vision dissolved. They were standing together on the green, in the daylight. Just the two of them, and a little girl tending the fire. 

“What are you doing here?” Theo asked, whipping his head around. He clearly saw the girl at the hearth, but seemed unbothered by her. Otherwise, the landscape was clear and empty. No one ran past, and Luke couldn’t even hear the sounds of happy campers in the distance. 

“I don’t—” Luke shrugged, Theo looked well and truly agitated. “I was sleeping, dreaming. I’ve heard about this kind of thing before.” 

“Dream vision,” Theo said. “Yeah, I, I guess our paths crossed, while I was looking.”

“Looking? You can control them?”

“I can’t control them very well,” Theo admitted. “But I know it's possible. I was trying to see the kids on the quest.”

Luke felt a twinge in his stomach. He’d give anything to see Annabeth, to know she was ok. How far across the country they were. It had been two days so far. He was sure if she was dead, he’d know, he’d feel it, but anything else was up in the air. And there was a lot of space between perfectly fine and dead. 

Theo considered him. “You’re a son of Hermes.” He didn’t even apologize when Luke flinched. “Communication is one of his whole deals, maybe you could find them. I kept seeing the past. Other kids.”

“Do you think it's important?” The dead woman in the rubble, the girl in the cavern. 

“Everything’s important,” Theo said, “but all of that has passed. I’m more concerned about the present. Can you try to find Annabeth? I was trying for Percy, but maybe she’ll be easier for you.”

Luke nodded, but he’d never tried anything like that. 

“You’ll be able to do neither,” the girl said. She didn’t look up from her fire. 

“My Lady—” Theo tried. 

“No, Son of Poseidon,” she said. “They will contact you, when it is time. You should focus instead on being ready when they do.” She turned to look at Luke, then, and even though she’d looked away from the fire, her eyes still seemed to reflect its light. “You have a mistake to fix, lightning thief. You still have time. But you must be ready to act when they reach out. Otherwise, nothing will be able to save you.” She looked sorry about it. 

“Sleep, for now, heroes. You have much work ahead of you. Do not dwell on the past. Like the future, it is too close and too far all at once. You cannot find all the answers you seek in either place. Do not search for the present. It is with you already.”

“But—” 

“I promised you council, my nephew,” the girl said. A goddess. Was she an important one? She called Theo a son of Poseidon, and her nephew. But nothing about this woman seemed even slightly like one of those tall, intimidating Olympians who Luke had seen only from a great distance. The world was full of minor gods; perhaps Kronos had a few daughters that Luke had never heard of. “I give it now. Rest, so you might be ready. I keep this secret, like I keep others, for now. But unlike others, I will not see a war.” 

“Thank you my lady.” 

She disappeared, and Luke looked at Theo, who was staring at the flames. Luke and Theo, all alone in this dream world, opened up all sorts of new possibilities.

“We do need rest,” Theo said. “She was right. We shouldn’t go delving into each other’s dreams. Not like this.” He didn’t look happy about any of it. “Goodnight.” 

The whole thing dissolved, Luke rolled over on his bunk, Theo’s hand slipping out of his grasp, and he didn’t dream again. 

Physically, he slept well, but his mind was preoccupied by so much. The thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone in the morning, either.

“Lord’s fruit,” Theo said, as they monitored Cabin 11’s morning bathroom.

“She was the only one,” Luke said.

“We should try things in a different, literal manner,” Theo said. “We’ve got strawberry picking today. Let's look through the fruit.”

“Anyone could find it.” 

“It might be different if we look,” Theo said. “And if anyone finds it, well, we’ll at least be able to maybe wash our hands of it.” He didn’t sound like he believed it. He didn’t mention the dream, or the goddess, but he had to be thinking of it. Luke wanted to ask about her, let Theo tell him her name, but he couldn’t get the words out.

They found nothing as they searched the fields. And a look into the Dionysus cabin, the only fruit god at camp, yielded no results, though they didn’t do a full investigation. 

Neither of them were brave enough to actually talk to Mr. D yet. 

By dinner that night, Luke was back to feeling terrible again. The goddess has warned him that failure to find the bolt would mean nothing could save him, but in truth, the idea of his own death didn’t seem any more immediate than a monster escaping the woods. But the idea that he’d been given a second chance, that he was given another quest, and he might fail it again, that was terrible. 

“We still have some time,” Theo said as they trudged back to the cabin after dinner. A rain storm had washed out the chance for a campfire. That had never happened before this week. He was pretty sure Theo was only wet in some sort of solidarity. Tensions at camp were picking up and things were being discussed. Alliances, battles, armies beyond capture the flag. For now, Luke was trying to stay neutral, but soon the gods would stop staying neutral, and they’re drag their children into all their dumb messes. 

_This is your mess,_ a voice in the back of his head reminded him. He ignored it. The bolt was his mess, but the gods refusing to talk to each other in a sensible way for five minutes about it was not. 

Why couldn’t the goddess in his dream just tell him where the damn thing was?

“You know it doesn’t work like that.” Theo said, not unkindly. “She’s not telling on you. You know that’s a big deal, a huge leap of faith on her part. She also might not even know. Some things are even shielded from the gods’ eyes. If they weren’t, you’d already be ash on the grass.”

The way Theo talked about the gods was strange sometimes, like he actually knew them beyond stories and confusing dreams that hardly made any sense.

“Thanks.” 

“You’d be the hottest ash in several centuries, at least,” Theo assured him, “but you’d still be ash. Maybe another night’s sleep will help.” 

They’d had two, and they’d gone over the wording again and again. Help was in that prophecy, it would have been worthless without it, but he couldn’t see what it was. 

Like the goddess, just enough rope was being given for him to hang himself. 

A very tiny voice in the back of his head, different then the one that reminded him it was his mess, a darker, deeper voice, told him to remember the escape plan. He could still go to Kronos. Ask after his advice, seek his mercy. He could bring Theo with him. They’d be free of the gods’ tyranny. 

But without the bolt, he was pretty sure he couldn’t enter Kronos’s service. And he was also pretty sure Theo wouldn’t come with him. Not even if he offered to bring Percy Jackson along. 

Sometimes Theo reminded him so much of Thalia, big hearted and so trusting of his skills. Look where that had gotten her, stuck sleeping alone as a tree instead of in Cabin 1. She’d still be alone, but she could at least have come out of there. 

“Oh my gods,” Luke said. A few of his charges looked at him, but Theo had been distracted by Nyssa Barrera, who’s attempt to fix Maya’s flashlight had started shooting sparks, even in the rain.

Luke waved them off, and he and Theo tried not to have too many close, coupley moments so late at night. That led to a very awake cabin, all of them eager to see something or tease. So he couldn’t explain his new revelation until the next morning. 

“The Lord’s fruit,” Luke said, as they timed everyone. Hermes Cabin had to use the communal bathrooms in shifts. “I thought Thalia, but what if it isn’t about his actual children at camp now, just where they would be, if they were here.”

Theo looked over to the cabins, Cabin 1 stood big and tall over all the rest. 

“It will be easier to search then Cabin 12,” Theo agreed. He gave Luke a once over. “You have to review reports for Chiron today, right?”

Chiron didn’t like Theo helping with that duty, even though Theo did about 70% of all the other head counselor things. 

“Yeah, I don’t know how to get out of it.” 

“Work fast,” Theo said. “Chiron has archery with Cabin 11. He’ll be super suspicious if I don’t show up,” he sounded hurt by it, because it was hurtful, “but he always pays special attention to me. Finish your reports early, and then search the cabin.” 

“Without you?”

Theo smiled, and it was a beautiful thing. “I trust you.”

Luke needed no more encouragement. 

After breakfast, Theo took the kids to archery. Without Michael, no one would be a standout, which should raise some morale. It was sad, really, but as long as everybody was equally great or terrible at a task, nobody got too angry at a parent that should be claiming them but hadn’t.

Luke went to Chiron’s office. He was not nearly as thorough as he needed to be, but Chiron trusted him too much, and would accept his work. If he was questioned, he'd say he was upset about Annabeth’s quest or something. He was a fast talker. 

He finished the two hour task in about 45 minutes, setting a new record. Mr. D wasn’t hanging around the big house, so Luke had to hope he was up to his own thing and set off back to the cabins. From afar, he could see some kid tending the fire near the green, though he couldn’t tell who it was. When he rounded the cabins properly, they were gone, and the space was empty. It reminded him of his dream shared with Theo a few nights ago, a scene so familiar yet entirely off, brimming with something old. 

Though, now, he could hear the sounds of an active camp all around him. The sounds reassured him by reminding him that this was real and actually happening, but they also made his heart beat faster. Everyone at camp was worried, even if they tried to hide it, but they weren’t yet truly aware of the stakes.

He was careful as he passed each cabin. You never knew when someone could be lurking inside, watching and ready to blackmail you later. Luke had long since learned that half the trick to winning and appearing unsuspicious was acting like you belonged wherever you went. Reputation was also important. Luke was a son of Hermes so people tended to be naturally on edge around them, but he had, at one point, also been the surrogate big brother to at least a third of the camp, and he was still a cousin to the rest of them. They really didn’t question him as much as they should. His current quest proved it rather exceptionally. He managed to get to Cabin 1 without anyone questioning his actions. 

It was big and imposing, like the god himself. Luke hated this place, hated _him_. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the power radiating off of him. 

“You can do this,” he told himself, as he wrapped a hand around the handle. “You have to do this or you’ll die and so will Annabeth and Theo.” 

He pulled the door open and stepped inside, and almost ran right back out again. 

A clap of thunder shook the room, so loud Luke thought he’d become deaf. 

Luke was sure for a moment he’d been found out and would be burned to a crisp. 

But then it was quiet, no angry gods appeared and he didn’t seem to have been smited. 

He didn’t even think Zeus could smite him like that. Not without his bolt. He took a deep breath. If Zeus didn’t notice him take the bolt from his own throne, he almost certainly wouldn’t notice Luke having a look around his forgotten cabin. He could, but he was a god, and his arrogance blinded him and he had other things to do. Like cheat on his wife and not protect his children or save Thalia from her tree. 

He looked up at the ceiling, and another rumble of thunder shook it. The ceiling was a mosaic of storm clouds, and they twisted and spun like the clouds outside. It was impressive, an outlandish show of strength. But not exactly homey.

But nothing about this place was homey. 

Luke hated Cabin 11. It was shabby and over-crowded. It might have been a normal mortal cabin at a normal mortal camp, just one without any repairs it desperately needed getting done. 

But Luke swallowed a lump in his throat and had to admit that it was at least better than this place. 

There wasn’t enough furniture in the Hermes Cabin. But there wasn’t any in the Zeus Cabin. 

There were alcoves lining the wall that looked like the perfect place to give residents their own beds, but they were filled with eagles statues or braziers. And in the center, impeccably carved and painted, was a statue of Zeus. It was twenty feet tall and held the lightning bold Luke had stolen, like it was about to get to that smiting business. Luke hated the fact that the black hair and blue eyes reminded him of Thalia much more than he hated the reminder of what could happen to him if it all went wrong. 

This was where Thalia would have had to live. 

There wasn’t even a bed. And camp had known she was coming. Grover had been sent for her. 

Sure, they hadn’t had any children of Zeus for like sixty years before that, but there hadn’t been any sons of Poseidon until Theo and then Percy showed up, and Percy had a bed.

Thalia would have been better off in the overcrowded Hermes Cabin, stuck between snotty thirteen-year-olds, than she’d be in this cabin. 

He resisted the urge to hurl insults at the statue. That would probably have gotten the god’s attention. They always managed to hear praise and slander. 

The rumbling of the thunder was at least a halfway-decent reminder to watch his words. He didn’t mind antagonizing the gods, clearly, but he didn’t want to be stupid about it. 

At least the Hermes Cabin didn’t make him look at his dad’s face all the time. In fact, he was pretty sure none of the other cabins had such a monument in their middle, not even Apollo or Ares.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and opened them again. He scanned the Zeus statue once more. Nothing about it inspired confidence. It was so easy to hate Zeus, Lord of the Sky, King of Heaven. 

And he was Luke’s grandfather. Even Theo had pointed that out. 

Luke didn’t want to give the bolt back. He wanted it to stay lost forever. For Zeus to suffer that humiliation. He wanted to go up to Olympus right now and tell the whole story. Not as a confession, but as a boast. Luke, some lowly half-blood, not cared about by his godly father, let alone his godly grandfather, had taken it from him. 

And when he spotted the bag he’d put the bolt in at the base of the statue’s feet, he almost screamed again. 

Because it was about more than just him. Thalia was coming back, and he wanted to see her. Annabeth was on that quest, and he couldn’t put her through losing him in vain. And Theo had tried so hard to help him through all of this. Would he be hurt by association? Luke would find a way to save them. All of the kids at this camp, left behind, unloved, forgotten. 

He couldn’t do that if he was dead. 

He picked up the master bolt. It was heavy. Truly, a godly weapon. With some hesitation, he unwrapped it. 

He didn’t know how long he stood there, in Cabin 1, holding the most powerful weapon in the universe. 

It _didn’t_ make him feel powerful. Stealing it had made him feel like a great hero. Getting away with it had made him surge with power. But holding it just made him feel small. 

Not compared to the gods. The gods, for all their power, were petty and whiny and small in their own ways. But compared to the destruction this held. He didn’t like the gods; he didn’t like their power or their influence. And he didn’t like that this weapon belonged to Zeus. 

He didn’t want to keep it, but he didn’t want it to belong to anyone else, either. 

He wrapped it up again and slipped out of the Cabin. It was easier making it to the Hermes Cabin. As long as no one saw him leave the Zeus Cabin, not a thing was suspicious about him crossing the green to Cabin 11. 

It was empty. He had his next activity in about 15 minutes, and he really should show up to that, because his reports were done. 

He shoved the bolt in his trunk. He hoped it would stay there until they figured out what to do with it. But if not, at least they knew where it migrated to. 

He’d expected to feel triumphant. A second epic quest, and he hadn’t failed, this time. Instead, he felt hollow, drained. Not quite as bad as he had when he’d slumped back over the hill after failing to retrieve an apple, the gash on his face still bleeding into its dressings, and two of his friends dead. But certainly like any kind of great hero in a story. 

He got to archery just as it was ending. Theo was directing clean up, and helping, which Luke didn’t always feel doing, and a few of the other counselors never did. Chiron was monitoring. Mostly, he was monitoring Theo very closely, like he was going to whip out one of the arrows and shoot at them all. 

Which was dumb, because Theo wasn’t just bad at archery, he was truly _awful_. And he might be a good liar, but you couldn’t fake that level of incompetence. You could see him physically holding back during swimming and canoe races and trireme practice, and even then, he was the best in camp. 

When Luke gave Theo his customary peck on the lips, the nearest group of cousins and siblings burst into the usual round of giggles. And Chiron raised an eyebrow, questioning Luke’s absolutely phenomenal judgement.

It wasn’t until they were away from Chiron’s watchful gaze, hands clasped together as they sheparded their cabinmates to Theo’s beloved canoe races, that he leaned in and whispered, “I found it.”

Theo glanced at the other campers, but they were either snickering, probably wondering what endearments they were whispering to each other, which would certainly be preferable to their actual conversation, or too distracted choosing a canoe for themselves.

“In the cabin?” Theo asked and Luke nodded. He wanted to tell Theo all about the trip to the Zeus cabin, how awful it was and that Zeus didn’t deserve the grandeur he decorated himself, how petty and narcissistic it all seemed, but all he ended up saying was, “It was just lying around there.”

“Makes sense,” Theo replied. He looked like he wanted to say more, but was distracted by one camper leaning much too close to one of the Naiads and quickly rushed over to them to prevent the kid from prematurely getting slam dunked into the water.

The rest of the day passed in strange normality. Having the bolt back in his possession lifted a burden off Luke’s shoulders, but settled a very different kind of exhaustion into his bones. Luke and Theo were kept busy by their duties and Luke was starting to suspect that if they wanted to have a quiet minute to discuss their next steps, they’d have to wait until nightfall again. Thankfully, one camper was decidedly not made for canoeing and provided Luke with an excellent excuse. She managed to finish the race, more due to her partner’s efforts than her own, and promptly threw up once they were back on land. Since it was pretty much lunch time by then, Luke sent the rest of the campers to the dining area while he took the sick girl to the Apollo cabin and then back to the Hermes cabin for prescribed bed rest. He put her in one of his siblings’ beds near the entrance, since he wasn’t going to let a sick kid sleep on the floor, no matter how comfortable her bedroll was, and sent the kids still lingering around off to lunch. When he stepped out of the cabin, Theo was already waiting for him.

“So we have it,” Theo said. “Now we just need to get it to the kids.”

“Why?” They could just put it somewhere obvious, let the gods find it themselves. He'd mail it to Hermes if his father didn’t have the annoying ability to always know who had sent a message.

Theo leveled him with a look. “Because the kids are on a quest and if they don’t return it, the big man is going to blast them to bits.”

Of course he would. Zeus would never be satisfied with just having the stupid bolt back, he’d want a scapegoat.

“So we need to figure out how to get it to them without them or Chiron or any other god noticing,” Luke summarized. “Within the next seven days.”

“Child’s play,” Theo muttered. He was counting on his fingers about something, and kept frowning. The truth was, seven days could be enough time. “I wish we could just call them.”

They could just Iris message them, but that would only put Annabeth on edge and planting the bolt somewhere they’d find it would be even harder then. Questers were, generally speaking, left alone so they could prove their skills and worth and nobody had to send out a rescue party and get six demigods killed instead of three. And—

“The goddess said they’d reach out to us.” 

Theo watched Luke expectantly, then slowly shook his head, cracking a smile. “So, maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll message us?” He bit his lip. “But I think it's more likely they’ll try for Chiron.”

“Well,” Luke shifted nervously, “I might be able to help with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been able to interrupt communication before.”

Theo raised an eyebrow, “Really?”

Luke nodded. “Mostly I’ve done it for late night Iris Messages and wind messages between would be paramores.” He considered it. “But if we know they are going to contact us, maybe we can do it. I think I can feel for it.” 

Theo grinned. “Any more powers you’re holding out on me?”

“Several,” Luke said. “I don’t like them.” 

Theo leaned over and gave him a kiss. He liked to do that sometimes. When asked, he said it was because demigods' lives were short. And he liked kissing Luke. 

“That’s a lie,” he whispered as he pulled back. 

Luke swallowed, but didn’t respond to that. 

“ _When_ they contact us, we can give them the bolt,” Theo said. 

“No.”

“What?”

“No, we can’t just give them the bolt without explaining what happened.”

Theo nodded. “I mean, it isn’t like it's hard to explain. You’re very good at stealing things.” Luke had to work very hard to suppress a smile at the praise. “Your grandfather’s a dumbass. We’re fixing your mistake. I heard once that adults admitting mistakes to children is important to their development or something. ” 

“I can’t tell Annabeth what I did.” 

Theo actually laughed. Theo laughed easily. At camp antics and bad jokes, his own and other people’s. He had a nice laugh. But something about it was cold at the moment. “Annabeth Chase,” he said, “thinks you hung the moon, and invented wine, the chariot, and the lyre. She won’t care at all.”

It sounded ridiculous. Annabeth was a clever kid, the smartest Luke knew. She should be able to see what he had done and react accordingly, no matter how close they were.

“You can’t know that.”

“I can,” Theo said. “I know you could do much worse. Much worse to her, even, and she’d still believe in you.” He frowned. “A quality that I don’t think you always share. But regardless. Annabeth would think your ability to admit your mistake made you an even better person than you already are.” 

“It's just a little school girl crush,” Luke corrected. Nevertheless, the certainty behind Theo’s words unsettled him. Theo was extraordinarily good at reading people. He had half of the Hermes campers pinned down within the first week, which was not exactly an easy feat. Still, he had to be wrong about this.

“No, it’s years of deep friendship, trust and love, and the fact that you’re really hot.” Then he smirked. “What Percy Jackson feels is a school kid crush.”

“What?” Luke couldn’t help but stare at Theo like he had grown a second head, yet Theo was just smiling in amusement, like he was telling a joke Luke wasn’t privy to.

“That fact that you haven’t noticed is pretty funny. But he also hasn’t noticed. But that is 100% what’s happening.” Theo laughed. “You could definitely break his opinion of you by being an asshole, but he doesn’t know enough about anything for _this_ to truly destroy his opinion of you yet.” 

“Look, I can’t tell them,” Luke said, with the same finality that he made proclamations about Cabin 11. 

“OK,” Theo said. “What else does the Prophecy say we have to do?” 

Luke had barely considered the prophecy beyond where the bolt might be and how completing that bit could bring him redemption. 

He pulled the notebook paper out of his pocket. 

They had found the stolen loot. Now what?

“ _Fix a mistake must the young lovers/the god who has turned you shall uncover,_ ” Theo read. “Maybe the mistake isn’t just the stealing of the lightning bolt, maybe it's what comes after it.”

Luke frowned. Making up for the theft seemed like enough of a fix-it already and going by Theo’s thoughtful expression, Luke wasn’t going to like his suggestion. “What do you mean?”

“We have to get the bolt to the god who has turned.”

“What? No!” Luke shook his head. He thought about holding that great weapon, dangerous and powerful. He couldn’t turn that over to an evil god. He was specifically trying to avoid that. That was the whole point of making up for his mistake, not letting the world go to shit, despite the gods kind of really deserving it. He told Theo as much. 

“No, I know, but I don't think it will work out that way,” Theo said. “Think about the dream, she said another god wants war, and we know a war god almost got the bolt from you, before I distracted him.”

Luke glanced across the green at the blood red Cabin 5. “You want to give it to Ares?” he whispered, as though afraid the god might hear. 

He didn’t seem to. Maybe he wasn’t interested in schemes as much as outright battle.

“I think we should be open to the possibility,” Theo said, with a confidence Luke couldn’t find in any of this. “Look, he wants war. Just keeping the bolt won’t do that, he’ll try something else. I think we need to wait until the kids contact us, and then we can see what unfolds. Something with Ares we don’t see yet.” 

“I don’t like having to wait around for other people to act,” Luke said. 

“No, me neither. But I think the best we can hope for at this point is to hear from the kids and then...I don’t know how we shadow them, since they could be anywhere in the country by the time they contact us, but if we get in contact with them, hopefully something with this god who has turned will show up. And we’ll be able to react.” 

“Things will fall into place?”

“If I’ve learned anything from greek mythology,” Theo said, “it's that things always fall into place. Prophecies always come true. But if it falls into place for victory or tragedy is always up in the air.”

“That’s not ominous.”

“That’s another thing about Greek mythology. It is always ominous.” 

Luke couldn't help but groan at Theo’s words, not least because he was right. 

“So we wait,” Luke said.

“And hope we can get the kids' calls before Chiron can,” Theo added. 

Luke looked around camp. He’d been here for five years, but it had never felt like this. You could cut the tension with a knife. Thunder rolled overhead. The sky opened up on and off all day. 

It was like everyone was waiting for a fight. Luke was keeping Hermes neutral, and Theo was glaring a lot when anyone tried to change that. But if things got much worse, he wasn’t sure how much they could keep control of the situation. 

So maybe it was a good idea to allow some people to let off some steam.

“I bet,” Luke said. “We can find a thing or seven to detain him.” 

Luke felt only slightly guilty about setting up disruptions around camp the rest of the day, and into the next. It wasn’t like they knew if or when exactly the kids would message them, but as long as everyone was distracted, they had a better chance of getting them on their own. Chiron had just run off to stop a fight between an Ares and an Athena camper. The whole still-cold war between Zeus and Poseidon had become even more prominent. More and more demigods had experienced strange dreams, edging them on. Despite their best efforts, the camp was gearing up for war. Aphrodite, Apollo and Ares had all more or less declared their allegiance to Poseidon, the latter likely just because Athena was firmly in Zeus’s camp. It wasn’t like Clarisse actually liked Percy, or even Theo, much. If war between the gods ever broke out, they wouldn’t be allowed to let it be anything personal between the campers. Luke sighed and sat down on the porch of the Big House. He hoped it would all be over soon.

“I don’t think Chiron’s gonna be able to clear that one up quickly,” Theo commented. “It looked pretty ugly.”

“That’s Ares and Athena for you,” Luke replied. “When they really get started they—”

Luke stopped. He felt something in the air shift. Somebody was reaching out. Luke disliked a lot of his abilities because they were so focused on movement. Coupled with regular demigod ADHD, it made it outright impossible to be still.

“Luke?”

“I think…” Frowning, Luke reached out. It felt like grabbing on a telephone wire, changing the radio station. As soon as he’d done it, a misty image flickered to life in front of them.

“Luke!”

As prophesied, Luke was now staring into the faces of Percy and Annabeth. The two of them looked a little tired, but beyond that, they appeared to be alright. This was good, Luke’s foolishness hadn’t gotten them killed, yet.

He smiled. “Percy, Annabeth! Is everything alright with you?”

“We’re— we’re _fine_ ,” Annabeth said, her tone a little sharper than Luke had expected. “We wanted to speak to Chiron.”

“Chiron’s a little busy right now,” Theo answered. “Camp has been—”

The connection fizzled and for a moment Luke thought that was because he had lost its hold on it, but then he realized that the problem must be on the kids’ side and not on theirs. Annabeth cursed, then excused herself and Grover to take care of it, leaving only Percy behind, who now appeared to be a little more unsure than before.

“What’s wrong with camp?” Percy blurted out, worry written all over his face. “Has there been another attack?”

Theo shook his head. “No, not that. Things are just getting tense with Zeus and Poseidon fighting.”

“It’s the Trojan War all over again,” Luke agreed. “Gods picking sides—”

Seeing that that was apparently not helping Percy calm down at all, Luke shut up. Percy didn’t need to know about what exactly was going on at camp. It would only take his mind off the quest. The kid needed to keep a calm mind.

“We have it handled,” Theo said instead. “Don’t worry about it. How have you been?”

Percy hesitated for another moment, then he began babbling. The words just all came out and Luke felt like he needed to take his sword and go a few rounds in the arena to calm himself down instead. Furies, Medusa, jumping in the Hudson River— this wasn’t remotely something twelve-year-olds should be handling. Next to him, Theo was surprisingly calm, or maybe he was just putting on a front for Percy the same way Luke was. He nodded at the right moments and threw in encouraging words in others.

“I wish we could help you out some more,” Theo said. “We can’t be there, but have you put some thought into which god could have taken the bolt?”

Percy frowned. “Chiron said the gods can’t take each other’s symbols of power. We’ve just been…” He trailed off.

“Look, we were there during the Winter Solstice,” Theo said. “Chaperoning and so on. Things were tense already then.”

It had been awful, actually. No doubt due to Theo’s presence on Olympus. With that action, unclaimed or not, Poseidon had been pretty much flaunting his child’s presence in the face of the rest of the pantheon. Luke had had much more trouble getting away and actually stealing the bolt than he had anticipated.

“They weren’t gearing up for war then,” Theo continued. “But if the gods were to start fighting, you want to be the one who has the biggest guns and there’s only one god who has a weapon that makes stealing _very_ easily.”

Percy was slowly nodding along. “You think Hades—”

“Names have power,” Luke interrupted Percy. 

Theo’s words were incriminating enough. There was no need to draw further attention to them. Hades was undoubtedly already pissed that Poseidon had two kids running around, making him the only god who hadn’t broken his oath. Of course, breaking the oath had consequences as well, but only so rarely did they seem to actually affect the gods. Usually it was their children who suffered for their parents’ mistake.

“Look, where are you right now?” Luke asked, switching the topic of the conversation to the actually important part.

“Eeeh,” Percy turned to look at something outside of the rainbow image, then rattled off the address.

“That’s good, you’ve gone far,” Theo commented, and then promptly told Luke, “Don’t you have something to look at in the Hermes cabin?”

Luke accepted that excuse and, with a handwave, rushed off to the Hermes cabin to grab the bolt and make his way cross country so that hopefully not everything would go incredibly wrong. If he was running like a man possessed to the cabin, nobody saw it fit to even attempt to stop him. It wasn’t like Luke often actually rushed somewhere; they must think something important had happened that they’d rather not get involved in. Luke grabbed the backpack in which he’d stored the bolt and made his way out of the cabin. He ran a while further before calling out “Maia!”, activating the winged shoes. This was the second time on this quest that his father’s gift had come in handy. Luke really didn’t want to think about the implications of that.

Instead, he focused on what he wanted the shoes to do: acceleration. Half the skill in using the shoes came from actually not tumbling over when you were wearing them, the other half being determination. He knew where their questers were now, and he couldn’t lose that advantage. 

Taking a deep breath, Luke stepped into the wind, letting the shoes rush him halfway across the country. It was by no means a comfortable way of transportation. Landscapes flickers past his eyes faster than his mind could grasp them and his body felt a little like it was pressed through a vacuum, but thankfully it all stopped as soon as it had started and Luke stumbled to a halt in an alley of a town that was very decidedly nowhere near New York. 

He let himself have a few moments to calm his mind. When he was done with this quest, he’d do nothing exciting for the rest of the year. 

Once he felt a little less like his head was ringing, he checked where exactly he had ended up. He walked out into the streets, mindful of anybody who could be watching him, but the few mortals outside paid him no mind. Luke checked the street signs and almost let out another relieved sigh. He was on the right path.

“Excuse me?” he asked the nearest person. “Could you tell me where the nearest gas station is?”

The woman pointed towards the right and Luke ran off with a rushed thanks. He jogged down the street and then spotted the gas station the kids had called from and nearby a diner. Luke tried to see if he could spot the kids when he was distracted by the sound of a motorcycle driving by. It was so loud, it reminded Luke of the lightning back in the Zeus cabin. The air seemed much heavier too, reeking of blood and sweat and ashes. It gave Luke a massive headache. The bike was also incredibly huge, monstrously tall, and the man sitting on it looked ready to mow every obstacle over. He parked the bike before the diner and then walked inside, carelessly leaving it standing outside.

As soon as he had disappeared inside, Luke’s head cleared a little and realization hit him with a brick.

_Ares_.

This had been almost too easy. Theo had been right, Ares was going to mess with the kids. For a moment Luke was tempted to interfere. They stood no chance against the god of war. Luke probably didn’t either, but he’d be able to provide them with a get-away. Maybe.

Or maybe he shouldn’t be stressing so much about Ares. He had decided to side with Poseidon, after all; he wouldn’t risk pissing off Poseidon and Athena by interfering with the quest too much or outright hurting the kids.

So all that was left for Luke to do was to plant the bolt on him. His hands were sweaty. It was stupid; he hadn’t been so nervous when he had stolen the damned bolt, he shouldn’t be freaking out now that he was putting it back.

“You can do this,” he told himself. “Easiest thing. You’ve been touching other people’s stuff since you could walk. Get a grip, Castellan.”

It would likely be better if Luke weren’t wearing a bright, kill-me orange shirt. He was convinced that the only reason Chiron was dressing them all in orange was so that he had an easier time keeping track of dozens of kids running through the woods surrounding camp.

“ _Maia_ ,” Luke said once more, hopefully for the last time today, and rushed into a sprint. He had to be fast enough that nobody would catch him, but slow enough that he’d be able to see if somebody did pay attention to him. He just hoped that Ares was just like his kids, too arrogant to think somebody would try to get them from behind. It was one reason why they were his siblings’ favorite targets. 

Nobody was paying attention to the bike in the parking lot. All the people inside were far more fascinated by the god in their midst and everybody outside wanted to avoid the motorcycle like the plague. No wonder, Luke thought. It looked like somebody had made the leather seat out of human skin. Luke shrugged the backpack off his shoulders and dropped it amongst the army bags settled on the rear of the bike. Hopefully, Ares wouldn’t immediately pick it out. As soon as Luke had deposited the bag, he ran away. He didn’t stop running until he had reached the borders of camp again and could drop to his knees, safety assured.

He’d _done_ it.

He felt laughter bubble up in his throat as sheer relief washed over him. Tyche and Nike must have been with him. The sheer amount of luck he’d had in the past week was overwhelming.

“Welcome back.”

Luke looked up and found Theo looking at him, smiling so openly and warmly. He wanted to kiss him silly. When Theo held out his hand to pull Luke up, Luke took it and pulled him down to him on the grass instead.

“Chiron’s asked for you,” Theo said.

“Don’t care,” Luke replied and just let himself enjoy holding onto Theo. “The bolt’s with Ares.”

“Good job.”

Theo sounded so earnest, like he was honestly convinced that Luke had done a great deed and hadn’t just been hoping he wouldn’t be messing up the entire time. It had approximately nothing to do with skill and everything with being likely the luckiest bastard on the planet.

They just laid there in the grass together for a long time. Heads side to side, fingers intertwined. 

He had done it. He’d completed a quest. He’d done the impossible. And he and Theo had lived to tell the tale. 

For two years, his failure had weighed him down. That failure had even been what drove him to steal the bolt in the first place. He’d been given a worthless quest by a father full of pity. And he hadn’t even managed it. That thirst to prove himself had been clawing through his chest ever since then. 

And Kronos had used that. 

But even before he’d failed, he’d been so angry and felt so useless. He’d always tried to discourage Annabeth’s obsession with quests. Everyone at camp wanted one, but Annabeth’s drive had been something more. And though Luke tried to counsel all the kids under him, he’d been downright discouraging to Annabeth. 

Partly because she was so young, but mostly because he understood. He’d been desperate to leave and prove himself since his father had sent him here. And then he’d utterly failed when given the easiest of chances. 

He’d never be able to tell anyone. But he didn’t think that mattered anymore. He didn’t need feasts or laurels. It sounded like a dumb platitude he’d tell some of his campers to get them to shut up, but he was taking satisfaction in a job well done. 

And Theo’s smile. He was taking a lot of satisfaction in Theo’s smile. He rolled over until he was pressed right up against him and leaned over for a proper kiss. And then another. And then another. Nothing was proper about that one last one. 

They were outside at camp, but they were pretty secluded here. It would be so easy to let go. 

And they deserved it. 

Luke rolled closer, until he was half on top of Theo. 

He ran a hand along the him of Theo’s camp shirt, and felt the hard muscles of his stomach quiver at his touch. 

When Luke paused their kiss so they could both breathe, Theo said, “I am all for this. But Chiron is looking for you, so we have to go lock ourselves in the weapons shed or the backup infirmary or something. Otherwise we will get caught at the literal worst time, I know it. And Chiron already thinks I’m corrupting you enough as it is.” 

He buried his head in the crook of Theo’s neck and considered it. But laying out here in the sunshine seemed like a better option. And moving sounded like a terrible idea. 

He did roll off Theo, though. 

He was nineteen now. He was an adult. Most of the people his age were off at college during the year. Some of them even left and never came back. And then you had to wait. Every summer, a seasonal camper or two would show up with magazine articles about some new athlete or actor or musician or inventor who they remembered from camp. And someone else would show up with a few tragic obituaries. 

He had been flat out denied the chance to leave before. But he’d also never had a clear idea about where he’d want to go beyond out and, briefly, to Kronos. 

He’d never really imagined a future. His mother’s screams and ramblings had put a stop to that. 

But for the first time, he thought about it. He had no idea what he wanted. He had no idea how he’d get it. 

But he considered the possibility for the first time. 

Theo squeezed his hand, and Luke hoped Theo would be there with him. 

He wanted, with a sudden jolt, to talk to Annabeth about it. 

Annabeth had known what she wanted to do with her life for as long as he’d known her: be a hero and be an architect. 

“How long do you think it will take them to come back?” Luke asked. 

“What?”

“The kids, how long do you think it will take them to get back to New York? Probably the same amount of time, right?”

“They have until the solstice,” Theo reminded him. But he didn’t seem to be paying attention to Luke’s words. His thumb was rubbing back and forth across Luke’s fingers in their connected hands. 

“I know, that’s in what, six days?” Luke said. “I mean, they got to Denver in less time, So it shouldn’t be a problem for them to get back with time to spare.”

Theo fingers frozen, and with what looked like great effort, he sat up. “They have to go to the Underworld.”

Luke sat up too and shook his head. “No they don’t, the bolt isn’t in the underworld.” 

“Not yet,” Theo agreed. “But I think it will be, before this is done.” 

“What! No, the whole point of this—” 

“And besides, even if Ares gave them the bolt outright, which he wouldn’t, and even if Ares didn’t want to use the kids to stir war between the big three, which he does....Well, Hades has kidnapped Percy’s mom. And he’d not going to ignore that, certainly not for some stupid war that he doesn’t think should have anything to do with him.” 

The weight that had lifted off of Luke’s chest dropped into the pit of his stomach. 

“Then what was the point of any of this?” How could Theo suggest that all the stress and struggle of the last days might not even matter? 

“The point,” Theo leaned in close, like for a kiss, but his words were sharp and hard, “is that an impossible quest isn't impossible anymore. The point is that you made a mistake and you started to fix it. But the damage was still done. That didn’t go away.”

“It could all be for nothing,” Luke whispered. He could hear the sound of clumping hooves against the grassy hills. They were about to be found.

“It wasn’t for nothing, even if it all goes wrong. At this point it almost certainly won’t blow up in _your_ face.” 

“Annabeth,” was all Luke could say. 

“I believe she’ll come out of this fine,” Theo said. “Better than fine, even; a hero.”

He looked over to where Chiron had walked into their line of sight. He had a frown on his face, but it was directed at Theo. 

“But—”

“We’ve completed our quest,” Theo said, voice quiet so Chiron couldn’t hear. “Now they have to complete theirs. But they’ll have to go to the underworld and face Hades. I’m sure of it. And then they’ll have to return to New York and face Zeus. There are forces at play here much bigger than us.” 

He meant Kronos, titan of time. 

And with that, the future seemed to vanish. 


	4. Percy Jackson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter 4!  
> We return to our brave heroes...

They came back to a funeral. Or at least Annabeth told him it was a funeral. A few summers ago, he and his mom had gone to a funeral for Mrs. Vega, who used to watch him when he was little. They had laid her out in a pretty church. Percy hadn’t liked the church; his one attempt at a religious school had ended in an expulsion and something called excommunication, whatever that was. And now, he mostly thought of churches as the place he’d seen Mrs. Vega cold and still.

A group of Athena kids were standing at the campfire and speaking, and between them they held a grey cloth the size of a throw blanket, an owl in the center. Percy thought it was rather beautiful, which didn’t exactly fit the atmosphere. Everyone looked sad and solemn in the stands. 

Everyone but Theo, who was on the edge of the campfire circle, leaning against a stake that had probably been set up for a tent at one point. He had a folded piece of blue cloth in his arms and a smirk on his face. As Percy, Annabeth, and Grover approached he looked over and winked. 

Annabeth’s siblings stepped towards the flames, and Percy realized they were going to set the pretty cloth alight. 

“Well,” Theo called, and most of the camp looked his way. No one looked happy; some were actually scowling at Theo, and Luke looked more upset than Percy had imagined possible. And then all eyes landed on them, and the whispers started. “I was right. I expect everyone to settle their tab by the end of the day. Remember I take drachma, dollars, and chore or activity schedule trades. I do not take music lessons, makeovers, or the like.” 

He walked up to them, and clapped Percy on the shoulder. “I can’t wait to hear all about your heroic exploits.”

Theo sounded like he couldn’t be any prouder of Percy.

Then Luke was right there, too. He grabbed Annabeth and pulled her into a hug. He was almost a foot taller than her and lifted her into his arms and off the ground. Percy figured under a lot of circumstances she’d kick someone doing that, but she rested her head on Luke’s shoulder. She didn’t even turn red at the attention. 

It only took a few minutes after that for the cheering to start. And then the full celebration. 

It was so different from the wariness they’d received in Olympus and the outright hostility of Percy’s trip to his mom’s apartment. 

There was a feast specifically prepared for them. They were crowned with laurel wreaths expertly grown by the Apollo Cabin. They recounted their heroic exploits, though they left some things a bit hazy. Medusa was a huge hit with the crowd, and Connor asked him to recount the blowing up of the bus and the furies four times before Luke shut him up. Some of the Apollo campers had been taking notes and others were already running for their instruments to create new iconic campfire songs. It was bizarre, but Percy couldn’t stop smiling.

At the campfire, Percy figured out that the clothes were funeral shrouds. They had been made to wrap their dead bodies in before burning or burial. 

But because they weren’t dead, they would be burned at the campfire. 

“It's so nice,” Percy said, when Annabeth’s siblings presented the grey fabric to her again. “It seems such a pity not to use it as intended.”

She punched him in the arm. And he laughed until it was his turn. Theo stepped forward and showed him his own shroud. It was blue, with a black trident in the center. 

The trident of Poseidon. 

The same mark on Theo’s tattoo. Percy had a hard time returning Theo’s smile as they lit it. 

His friends from the Hermes Cabin, who, before, had been done with him, were quick to usher him back among them. Annabeth and her siblings sat right beside them. 

“You lived,” Theo said. “That’s a good thing. Try to look less like you’re still in the Underworld, yeah?” He passed Percy a marshmallow already stabbed on a stick.

Percy was pretty sure he should feel bad. The weight of his father’s expectations. The weight of Kronos. What Gabe might do to his mom. Whoever had helped Ares with the lightning bolt. But as he munched on a too well-cooked marshmallow, and learned the weirdest camp songs in the State of New York, he felt happy. 

Home. 

Like this was a place he could really belong. 

The melancholy didn’t start to settle in until they all broke and headed back towards the cabins. Luke and Annabeth were huddled close in quiet conversation, so Percy and Theo walked back together. Theo occasionally yelled out orders to his younger cabin mates, but most of them just laughed right back and only toned their antics down a little, so Theo eventually let them be. 

“It was a lot,” Percy admitted. He couldn’t say this to anyone else, except maybe Grover and Annabeth. But they’d been there. “I—” 

“I know,” Theo said. He always sounded  _ so _ sure when he said ‘I know’ to Percy. “You’ve been through a lot. You’ve learned a lot.” Percy was pretty sure he didn’t mean general knowledge or even Greek mythology. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” He grinned in the low light of the moon and camp’s flickering lanterns. “We’ll talk all the rest of the summer. You’ve had a crazy long day. A crazy long few weeks. You need and deserve some rest, Kid.”

He clapped Percy’s shoulder again, and then waited at the entrance of Cabin 11, watching Percy go back to Cabin 3. 

It was empty and lonely. But it also had a real life bed, so Percy fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. 

The next day started much slower than usual, but given that camp was still full of demigods, magic, and murder weapons, it wasn’t as noticeable as it could have been. It was strange to wake up on his own. He had rarely slept alone in the past weeks. The first few days Percy had spent in the Hermes cabin, and then he was on the quest with Annabeth and Grover. He’d be alone in the Poseidon cabin for the rest of summer.

Or longer.

The quest had shown him how dangerous the world really was for him. They had been three people while on the quest and hardly made it out of every sticky situation. How was he supposed to fight off monsters on his own in the middle of New York? 

Percy’s thoughts drifted to his mother. She had been caught by a monster once, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen a second time. And what if Percy couldn’t save her then? She shouldn’t have to deal with all of Greek mythology haunting her for the rest of her life just because she was his mother. She deserved so much better.

Percy wondered if she was back in their apartment yet, serving Gabe her seven-layer dip so he wouldn’t freak out. The thought of his mother being near him made Percy’s blood boil. Back when Grover had mentioned how demigods smelled to monsters, Percy hadn’t had the time to linger on it, but now that it was all over, it seemed like it was all he could think of. His mother had stayed with Gabe because of him. If he stayed at camp, she’d be free.

Percy made his way to breakfast with those thoughts occupying his mind, distracting him. The cheery atmosphere from yesterday night still carried over to the others, but it wouldn't stay with Percy. He felt bad for being unable to appear as optimistic as everybody else, but he tried his best to wave back at Annabeth when he took his seat at his table. It wouldn’t be too bad, he rationalized. He had his own cabin, which was certainly much bigger than his room at the apartment. Percy could put up whatever posters he wanted, decorate with his minotaur horn. He wouldn’t have to start the school year at yet another school, learning things that wouldn’t keep him alive in case the Minotaur decided to come back early. Studying at camp was the easiest school had ever been for him.

It should be an easy decision to accept he wouldn’t only spend the summer here, but all Percy really wanted to do now was go home, hug his mom, and tell her all about his adventure.

After breakfast, he decided to go to the lake. As he could determine his own schedule now, he didn’t have anyone checking in on him. While feeling the sand beneath his feet was great and Percy felt refreshed with the water twirling around his ankles, Percy was quickly reminded of Theo, who was still with all the others in the Hermes cabin.

It wasn’t fair.

Angrily, he kicked up the water and marched back to the camp, his feet carrying him towards the arena. He hoped to meet some Ares or Athena kids there, since they were always up for a spar, but to his disappointment, the Hermes cabin was apparently training right now. Percy wondered if he could still make his escape, but it was already too late; he had been spotted.

Theo waved him over, smiling encouragingly, and so Percy trod over to him.

“Up for some sword fighting?” Theo asked.

Percy recalled the last time he had been fighting Theo. His ass had been handed to him, but looking back, it had probably been for the better. He wasn’t so sure he’d have been able to win against Ares if not for those extra beatings.

“Sure,” he agreed, uncapping Riptide.

Theo’s eyes lingered on the sword. “Does it fit you well?”

“Yeah,” Percy replied. “Way better than all those other swords you had me try out here.”

“Good, then let’s see how good you actually are with a sword when you’re fighting without a handicap.”

Unsurprisingly, Percy was still the one who landed in the dirt the most, but he imagined that he was holding himself slightly better than before, that it took Theo some effort to evade Percy’s stabs, but that might also just be his imagination. Regardless, the longer the two fought, the more exhausted Percy became, although his mood lightened. It felt good just to move without a real win or gain or fearing sharp talons ripping into your skin. 

When Theo called break, he unceremoniously dumped a bucket of water over Percy’s head. Percy stood around dumbstruck for a moment before he attempted to do the same to Theo, missing by a margin. After that, it was a free-for-all. Percy chased Theo through the arena, then outside until they both collapsed beneath a tree. His lungs burned and he hoped his face wasn’t as red as it felt, but he was already feeling a lot better than he had this morning.

“You okay, Kid?” Theo asked. “First night back is always harsh.”

“I’m alright,” Percy asked. Then, stumbling over Theo’s words, “I thought this was your first year at camp?”

“It is. Doesn’t mean I don’t know what returning home after the apocalypse feels like.”

That actually put it accurately. Being back at camp, experiencing the demigod normal security after his quest, was overwhelming. He kept expecting the other shoe to drop, but it was just over. Percy had been to the Underworld and returned victoriously and daily life still continued on.

“Are you going home after summer?” Percy asked, wincing belatedly at how stupid the question was. Theo wouldn’t have been staying at camp for a year already if he had a home to go to. Or maybe his situation was like Annabeth’s, where home was just  _ uncomfortable  _ and not camp.

“This is my home,” Theo said. “Staying year-round is not that different from just coming when there’s no school. Routine’s not all that changed.”

He sounded like he had expected it to be different. Percy could picture Theo arriving at camp during summer, chased by a monster just like he had, very easily.

“I’m thinking of staying,” Percy admitted.

“I know you are,” Theo said, because he always knew.

“Do you think I should stay?” he asked.  _ Do you want me to stay _ , he didn’t.

“I think we’d have fun together,” Theo said. “Camp’s chill in the off season. We all do our own things until someone comes up with some crazy terrifying new training exercise and we do that.” Theo sighed. Percy could feel the  _ but  _ coming. 

“But,” he prompted after several minutes.

“But,” Theo said, “I don’t think you really want to stay.”

“I miss my mom,” Percy said. “I thought I’d lost her forever, and now I know I haven’t. I know I should stay. Train and learn and not put her in danger, but—” He looked up at Theo, they had the same eyes, but Percy was pretty sure he was incapable of looking that understanding.

Theo clapped him on the shoulder. “I can’t go home, Kid.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, but Percy could hear every word, even with the commotion of camp surrounding them. “I can never go home again.” He paused and took a slow deep breath. It was what Percy did sometimes, when he felt like crying, but knew he had to tough it out. “If I could go home, if I could see my mom again, I’d be gone in a second.”

“Why can’t you—”

“I’m not going to tell you,” Theo cut him off, “so don’t ask me.” 

It was the first time Percy had felt truly reprimanded by Theo. 

“So,” Percy tried instead, because it wasn’t like he didn’t constantly ignore authority figures who reprimanded him, “you think I should go home?”

“I think you have a lot of summer left to think about it,” Theo said. “I do think that before you make any choices about protecting anyone, you should probably talk to your mom. It isn’t fair to make that choice for her.”

Percy knew that, but beyond that, he knew that his mother would immediately come and pick him up. 

“She’ll probably want me to come home, regardless of the risk.” 

“You should maybe trust that she’s been living with you for almost 13 years and has some idea what she’s doing.”

“It isn’t just about her,” Percy admitted. “My step-father.”

Theo had returned his sword to its normal position at his belt, and his hand reached for the hilt now. A nervous tick Percy had noticed before.

“He’s awful,” Percy admitted. “He, I think he hits my mom. And he  _ hates _ me and I hate him and my mom wouldn’t let me kill him. She said she’d take care of it, but I don’t even know what that means. Like, I don’t know if she can get a divorce or even...if he’ll let her.” 

“Your mom sounds like a pretty cool person,” Theo said. 

_ ‘Pretty cool’ _ didn’t even begin to describe how great Sally Jackson was.

“She’s the best person in the entire world.” 

“Well, you only talked about it to her yesterday. Give it a few days. Talk to her more about going home. I don’t think you ever have to see him again if you don’t want to.” 

It was a strong statement, and Percy wasn’t sure if he believed it. 

“Staying wouldn’t be so bad,” Percy said, reminding himself. “You’d be here. And Annabeth.” He thought Clarisse was a year rounder, too. But as long as Percy had more people in his corner, that was ok.

“You and Annabeth aren’t at odds anymore, then?” Theo asked. 

“We’re friends,” he said, and could feel the smile split across his face as he remembered her words, her promise that  _ you’re my friend, seaweed brain _ . And if his cheeks felt a little red, well, they’d been running around a lot and it was a hot day.

A grin broke out on Theo’s face, like Christmas had come early, which seemed weird until he said, “Daughters of Athena make the best questing partners.” 

Theo had traveled with his own daughter of Athena for years. Not that Annabeth was Percy’s; she’d probably have punched Percy in the arm just for thinking it. But Percy liked the idea somehow, of doing all of this with Annabeth again. 

“I am very glad you two are officially… friends.” 

Annabeth and Theo really did make the idea of staying through the year not sound so bad. Between them and being able to mostly skip out on school...well, it wouldn’t make up for his mom, not really, but it wouldn’t be nothing, either. 

When it was time to move onto the next activity, Theo oversaw the clean up and Percy helped straighten up the practice dummies with Travis. 

“I lost three drachmas because you’re alive,” he said as he shoved a straw head back in place. 

“Um—” Percy didn’t really know how to respond to that, so he just went with, “Sorry.”

Travis shrugged, “Probably worth it. You’re pretty cool, and better alive than dead.”

“Thanks?” 

“A lot of people lost money over it, but I think in general are happy you’re alive.” 

“Who all bet we were dead?” Percy asked, suddenly wondering whether he should start keeping a list. 

“Oh, just about everyone,” Travis said, after he considered it. “Theo took all the opposing bets. That’s why he made so much money. Not everyone bet, of course. Most of the Athena cabin didn’t make a bet, because of Annabeth. Only Malcolm, I think. And Luke decided you were all dead, but he just kind of had a breakdown over it. He definitely didn’t bet over it.”

The idea of Luke having any kind of breakdown was strange. He was, well,  _ Luke _ . But thinking of how he had almost crushed Annabeth to death when they had returned made it look at least a little plausible.

“Theo didn’t think we died, though?”

“Nope, which makes the fact that he made us make your funeral shroud kind of weird. But given that Ares was jonesing for the opportunity, that’s probably for the best. They also lost  _ all _ the good activity times, Theo’s next three kitchen duties, and like $700 dollars.” Travis smiled. “But that’s all ok. You’re alive and Clarisse will probably be too scared to pulverize you, since you took on her dad.” 

Percy wasn’t sure what to make of any of that, but he didn’t actually have to respond because Cabin 11 went off and he had to do something else. He missed his Greek lessons with Annabeth. He  _ could  _ go join the Athena Cabin’s activities and see her. But they were at arts and crafts, and they were all insanely good at it. It would have made Percy’s macaroni art look particularly pitiful. Annabeth had built an entire Parthenon out of Popsicle sticks once. It was to scale and she’d actually made it when she was only nine. 

He ended up hiding out in the stables for a little bit, talking to the pegusi until he heard the bell for lunch. 

He sat down alone, but Grover showed up halfway through and joined him at his table, which was nice, even though he kept glaring skeptically at the burger Percy was eating. Percy only surreptitiously glanced at the Hermes’ table a few times, wondering what it would be like if Theo could actually sit with him and be claimed and be his brother. 

He did not voice this to Grover, but when lunch was over he skipped all pretense of following a schedule and wandered down to the beach. 

He’d always love the beach. Home had never really been the shitty apartment where Gabe lived; it had been his mom’s smile or the ocean. 

Now it all made sense. And nothing made sense. The weight of his father’s potential disapproval weighed heavily on him, and he’d barely done anything yet. 

“Want to talk about it?” Percy really should not have been surprised that Theo followed him here. 

“No.”

“Cool,” Theo said. He sat down in the sand next to Percy, bumping their shoulders together for a second and then looking out over Long Island Sound. “Want to talk about something else?”

Percy did. “You never thought we were dead?”

“Not for a second,” Theo said. “And my unshakeable faith has made me a very rich man. Remind me later, I’ll buy you something from the camp store. It was your doing, I’m happy to share.” 

“No one’s come back alive in two years and I didn't know what I was doing,” Percy said. “How could you have any faith in me?”

Theo sighed. “No one knows what they’re doing, in anything, until they get in there. Sometimes it's about preparing and sometimes it's about having a good team. And with Annabeth, you were able to kill two birds with one stone on that count. But sometimes you just have to go out there and sink or swim. And luckily, Poseidon kids are normally pretty good at swimming.”

It was pithy, but it didn’t really answer Percy’s question. 

“How about this,” Theo said. “I could tell you had a lot of nerve, a lot of raw talent, I wasn’t lying about having a good team, and you had a really really good reason to succeed. Plus, I hate to tell you this, but honestly, the Underworld isn’t the hardest place for a hero to get in and out again from. Hard as hell, sure, but not any harder. I knew you could do it.” 

“Then why did you make my funeral shroud?”

“Because someone had to,” Theo said. “And because you did, and will, deserve a proper funeral. Everyone does. I don’t want you disrespected or dishonored, even if I knew it was a waste of fabric that I had to steal from the arts and crafts pavilion because I don’t do things like weave.”

It was the most morbid and one of the sweetest things Percy’s ever heard, and Percy went to the Underworld very very recently. 

Theo was his friend. Theo cared about him. Theo wanted to help him. He could trust Theo. 

They’d all been pretty wishy-washy about some elements of the quest, but there's one thing he had definitely not shared. He’d tried, of course, but after he got shot down by Zeus, he hadn’t tried to repeat it at camp. But he should tell Theo. 

“You know Kronos?” Percy asked. 

“Oh yes. Lord of Time, King of the Titans. Father to the Gods, and Grandfather to...some others,” Theo said. “I’m familiar.”

Percy took a deep breath. “It was him. He pulled all the strings, he wanted the bolt stolen. He did something to Ares and he’s rising again. No one wants to believe me, but I’m sure of it.” 

Percy held his breath, but Theo just nodded. “The thing to remember,” he said, “is that these things happen on cycles. The monsters come back, the gods stir. And heroes have to meet them when they do.” 

“What does that mean?”

“It means I know Kronos is rising. I’m sure of it too.”

That seemed like something Theo definitely should not have been sure of, even if they were in agreement. And so even though belief was all he wanted, Percy had to ask. “How do you know?”

“Yes.” Percy was sure he’d heard that voice a thousand times before, even though he couldn’t identify it. He looked to his right, where it had come from and tried not to gape. 

He was human-sized and could almost pass for normal on most beaches. He looked the same as he had yesterday. Hawaiian shirt, fishing hat, with sandals and shorts not unlike the ones Theo and Percy were wearing. He shared his dark hair and green eyes, his brown complexion and jaw line, with both boys too. 

Theo got to his feet, eyeing Poseidon warily. Percy followed suit. 

“I would also like to know how you know that my father is so intent to rise?”

Theo didn’t say anything; he just closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 

He opened them again, looked at Percy and Poseidon, and then repeated the action. 

“Because I’ve seen it happen before. It all happened to me before,” Theo finally said.

Poseidon stepped closer to Theo, and almost on instinct, Percy stepped back. 

Poseidon was mostly human-sized, but he was still half a foot taller than Theo, who wasn’t short at all. Theo looked up at him and met his eyes. Nothing about his face or in his posture suggested he was intimidated or scared. 

When Percy had met his father on Olympus, he'd been struck by how much he looked like Theseus, but now, with them standing together on the beach, he doesn't understand how anyone could make the mistake of not thinking they weren’t related.

“Perseus,” Poseidon finally said. He wasn’t talking to Percy.

“You know, I always hated when people called me that,” Theseus said. “But after over a year, I kind of miss it.”

“What?” Percy asked. Because none of this made any since.

“How did you get here?” Poseidon asked.

“Magic?” Theseus shrugged. “I don’t know. We lost, badly. The woman I loved died in my arms.” Percy saw his hand go to the hilt of his bone sword. “There was lots of blood and screaming and crying. I’m pretty sure not all of it was mine. I set off an earthquake. And then I was here. Six years in the past. Or, five now, I guess.”

“We lose against Kronos?” Poseidon had, just second ago, looked no older than Percy’s mom, lineless, hair full and dark. Before Percy’s eyes, he seemed to go grey, lines forming around his eyes and mouth when he frowned.

“No,” Theseus shook his head. “No, we won against Kronos,” though he looked sad at the memory. “We lost a lot, but we won against Kronos eventually. But there are other enemies out there, and we lost.”

Poseidon looked like an old man when he sighed again. “Well Kronos is defeatable. That is good.”

“Things have already changed,” Theseus said. “Kronos is very defeatable, but I can’t tell you beat for beat what will happen. The thing with the Lightning Bolt, that played out differently for me.”

None of this made sense to Percy, but with a sort of sick twist in his stomach, what they were talking about started to become clearer. Theseus, who looked just like an older Percy. Who had the same sense of humor. Who even supported unnaturally colored food.

“But Kronos comes first?”

“Yes,” Theseus agreed. “Kronos comes first. But keep in mind, what happens after, we lost.” He held up his forearm, where the tattoo Percy had thought was super badass since he met Theseus stood bold and black against bronze skin. “I mean we  _ all _ lose.”

Poseidon shifted in front of him. He’s got the same black hair and green eyes as Percy and Theseus, but his hair is cut shorter and his eyes somehow look darker, more dangerous. He’s wearing a blue bed sheet wrapped around him with a purple cloth crossed over his shoulder. Percy blinks, and he’s back to his shorts and fishing hat, but for a second, it was something else. “That is something to think on,” Poseidon agreed. “I will talk to—”

“Maybe Juno?” Theseus said, lofty, with an air of knowing something.

“Juno,” Poseidon agreed. “Yes, that’s a good idea.” His green eyes went to that tattoo again. “It was clear you were already claimed, I don’t know what that old centaur and that upstart think they were playing at, putting you with the rest of the rabble.” Percy saw Theseus’s hand, still resting on his sword, clench into a fist. “But going forward, I need it to be clear, who is in my house, who is on my team.” Above Theseus’s head, not as bright in the afternoon sun, a glowing trident appeared.

By the time Percy looked back at Poseidon, he’d faded into the sea breeze.

Theseus stared at the spot where he’d been, before shaking his head and turning back towards camp. The trident didn’t leave. It probably won’t, Percy realized, until everyone at camp had seen the claiming.

“You’re me,” Percy finally managed to get out. “You’re me from the future.”

“Yeah,” Theseus, Perseus,  _ whatever  _ replied. “Not sure I want you to remember that. Very sure you can’t mention it to anyone else.” It was odd as threats went. Percy just nodded in agreement.

They were back at camp proper by then. The trident was still there. Luke saw it first; he didn’t look happy.

“Wait,” something occurred to Percy. “You, and Luke—” it wasn’t something he knew how to put into words. “And you said the woman you loved died.”

Theo’s grin was somewhat looped as he shrugged.

“Yeah, consider this your bi awakening. If it makes you feel any better, I literally didn’t realize it until I time traveled.”

It did not make him feel any better.

The commotion gathered a crowd. Chiron was there and frowned at the pair of them. “Hail,” he said, “Theseus Blofis, son of the sea god.”

“Looks like you’re going to get company in your cabin,” his older self said. Percy knows his own fake smile. “Hope you don’t mind, Kid.”

“No,” Percy said, though he wasn’t sure if he minded or not. 

“Sounds good. Help me get my stuff.” 

It wasn’t that much stuff. But Percy stayed by his side as he collected it from the Hermes cabin. Luke walked with them to the door of Cabin 3, but he didn’t go inside. Older Percy gave Luke a kiss and promised he’d see him later.

It made Percy think about kissing Luke, about wanting to kiss Luke, which was not the kind of distraction he wanted right now. It was a very distracting distraction. 

Older Percy, who Percy should really ask about names, smiled as he walked into the cabin. “Home sweet home,” he said. And it wasn’t sarcastic, exactly, but Percy recognized the edge in his own voice. 

He chose a bunk at the other end of the room from Percy, and put his stuff on it, before flopping on it himself. 

The smile he gave Percy was a hard one. Percy didn’t normally think of himself as soft. He’d had a tough life, he’d seen some shit. The quest had only added to that. But the guy, the man, in front of him looked like he’d walked through hell. And not just the Underworld, something with even more fire and brimstone. 

“I really shouldn’t tell you this,” he said. “I know there are potions that can make people forget. And knowing this isn’t a burden you should have to bear.” 

“I can take it.” 

“It isn’t a matter of can,” he said, “but should.” He shook his head. “But I’m going to tell you this, now at least, anyway. Dad made a mistake.” 

“Claiming you?”

“No, it was really getting too obvious. He needed to do it. Sooner or later.” Older Percy shrugged. “It looked worse, constantly hiding me, then just admitting he’d had an extra indisgrestion, even if he didn’t.” 

“Well, Hades and Zeus don’t have two kids,” Percy pointed out. “That could reflect badly.” 

“We’ll see,” he said, ominously. He was like that, sometimes, and made more since, now; he did know what was going to happen. Annabeth had once said she thought maybe he’d been blessed (or cursed) by Apollo. “But again, lying about it, at this point, probably wouldn’t have made it better.” 

“And now he has you on his team,” Percy said. Because it had been clear since he arrived at Camp that Theseus was something special. Something powerful and dangerous that had been through a lot. Percy still wasn’t sure what all of that was, wasn’t sure if he was capable of any of that, but he knew why Poseidon would have wanted to claim such a person. 

“Yeah,” Theseus said. “That was Dad’s mistake. Thinking I was on his team.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> We hope you enjoyed this chapter as well and would love to hear what you think!


	5. [Redacted] aka Theo Blofis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. We hope you like it.

He woke up in the morning and before he even opened his eyes, he thought to himself: I am Theseus Blofis.

 _I’m Theo_ , he reminded himself.

Theo.

Theo.

Theo.

Percy Jackson was the kid sleeping in the bunk across the cabin. He wasn't even 13 year old, and he'd just completed his first quest. He hadn’t seen the worst their world had to offer yet. Theo was someone different; Theo had fought wars and lost friends. Theo had lost a war and fought friends. Theo had traveled to the past. He was Theo; not Percy Jackson, hero of Olympus. And he needed to remind himself of that every day.

It was more important now than ever, since he was back in the Poseidon cabin.

In the Hermes Cabin, he could just be another nobody. He'd always been a little bit of a standout—he was older and he wore his battles on a body covered in scars, but still. He was among dozens of kids who were just looking for their place in a world that was out to make life hell for them. And Luke was there too. He was a very grounding influence on Theo, more than Theo had ever expected him to be. Luke was nothing and everything like Theo remembered. And now—well, now Luke was something else. Something close and special _Theo_ couldn’t lose.

Luke had a lot of thoughts about following the rules and setting a good example that Per— that Theo had missed the last time they'd interacted as camper and counselor. They rang ironically, and it had its own adorable edge to it. But Luke followed the rules, even ones like no sharing a bunk when surrounded by 30 odd cousins and siblings. 

But since pretty early on, long before they started dating, Theo had set up his bedroll next to Luke's bed. When things got bad at night, Theo could see Luke sticking out of the twin bed that was really too small for him, one of his hands close to Theo. And sometimes, Theo would reach out and grasp it, just for a moment. Just a reminder that things could be different. It was strange not being there anymore.

It was stranger still to be in a place he'd once spent so much time in. It wasn't really different, except Theo was sleeping on the other side of the cabin, because the Kid had chosen the bed that Theo had also chosen once upon a time, and Theo knew they needed space. It was strange too, to have a cabin mate. He'd had Tyson from time to time, but that wasn't the same as having another full-time camper. Before they'd gone to bed, Chiron had mentioned something about Theo being the new head camper, even though he'd been claimed late, because he was so much older, so much more experienced, and had been at camp longer. The Kid could have challenged him, of course, because he'd completed more quests (Ha!) but the Kid had just nodded along, looking quite thankful not to carry any additional burdens. 

Theo had never had a camper before. He knew how to manage the schedules and the rotating duties, but he'd never had to manage another kid, really, unless you counted the last year, when he basically became Luke's co-counselor in the Hermes Cabin.

Honestly, he'd rather keep that schedule and hang out with them. But Hermes was so big, even two extra people who didn't have to be there might be a problem. He wanted to help Luke out, Gods know he needed it. He was shouldering the burden well, as far as Theo saw, but he was intimately aware of how quickly things could go south.

He'd been so angry recently. And he hadn't looked much happier last night when Theo had gotten claimed, even though one of his angers recently had been about that Theo wasn’t.

While the Kid was still asleep, Theo got up and got ready. This early, the communal showers were empty.

No one else was around. sunrise was just starting, but the sunup Apollo kids weren’t poking their heads out. Nor were any of the Ares kids heading to the arena for dawn bootcamp.

The only other soul was the girl poking at the fire at the center of the cabins.

“Lady Hestia,” he said. When he greeted her in the middle of a busy day, he tended towards small quick bows of his head. Since they were alone, he offered her a fuller sign of respect, bending at his waist.

“So attentive,” she said, but it was with a smile of delight.

“I’ve seen too much to not know the importance of the hearth, Aunt,” Theo said.

He always greeted her when he saw her, and he’d said the same thing many times. The truth was he _liked_ a handful of the gods, but he respected Hestia. And he would pay her that respect whenever he could.

Sometimes they talked about the goings on and sometimes they talked about his past in bleak, vague terms.

“A son of Poseidon,” she said, but she nodded to his Legion Tattoo. She had never not known. Just like Chiron and Mr. D, though Dionysus had never been bothered to care.

“Yes.”

“I congratulate you,” she said. “And if I might make a suggestion. Perhaps a son of the sea god would do well to go to the beach this morning. I believe you will find something you need there.”

That was a polite command and a dismissal all at once. He bowed again and thanked the goddess for her advice, making his way to the beach.

He hoped his father wouldn’t make another appearance. He wanted to talk to Poseidon again like he wanted a hole in the head. Well, actually, Luke had said something about him looking hot with an earring, so maybe he’d prefer the hole.

Still, it was relaxing to be there, to see the ocean. In some ways, it made him dream of escape. He could slip in and disappear, let the world fight its wars. He’d sacrificed so much already, and he wanted to rest. Juno had once offered him a choice: carry her into New Rome or escape to the Pacific Ocean.

Now, he could escape to the Atlantic.

He hadn’t meant to stay this long anyway, and now that the Kid was here—

But there was so much in the world he knew needed to be done. He could get the golden fleece and free Thalia. He could get Bianca and Nico out of the Lotus Hotel. He could help Hylla and Reyna on Circe’s island. He could go to San Francisco and assassinate Octavian. He might be only fourteen now, but he was probably already being a dangerous bastard. He could swim to Rome and find the Athena Parthenos, save the little girl sleeping in Cabin Six the trouble.

Standing on the beach with Long Island Sound in front of him, and the open ocean just beyond that, he felt stifled and trapped here at camp.

He knew it was worse for Luke, and Theo couldn’t leave him. He couldn’t leave the Kid or Annabeth or Grover either. Not when he knew he could help. And Caster, Lee, Michael, Selina, Beckendorf, all the others. He owed it to them to find out who was filling Luke’s place in Kronos’s revised plans. And he owed it to himself, to his battered and bruised and still broken heart, to not return Luke to Kronos’s side. Theo wanted him and he didn’t have it in him to let something go like that by choice. Especially not after it had been so forcefully taken from him last time. 

He ran a hand along the hilt of Annabeth’s sword. He didn’t even need to close his eyes; he could still see her bloody face, could still feel her dead weight in his arms.

And regardless, he’d dropped a little bit of a bombshell on the Kid the night before. That needed to be resolved. He knew there were memory erasing poisons. Magic had never really been his skill, but he couldn’t let the Kid go on knowing the truth.

It was dangerous to both of them, but it was also a lot to ask of him. He shouldn’t have to have the burden of Theo’s failed future on himself. He already had his own.

Theo wanted to curse the gods. If there was a Hecate Cabin this would be easy. But none of the Hecate kids he had known were in Cabin 11 now. He knew that there was a room in the big house full of ingredients for spells and potions. He’d probably have to go there and start _reading_ later today.

“I’ve been waiting to get you alone.”

Theo let out a humorless laugh. It had been two years, but he recognized the voice.

“Hermes,” he said, turning to greet the god. He was in his tracksuit. Theo nodded to the caduceus, “George, Martha.”

Theo greeted the snakes mostly to put the god off. He doubted Poseidon had shared his own recent revelation about his extra son. And Hermes would certainly know he’d never met some random demigod.

The truth was, Theo had no idea what this could be about, so mind games were his only opening.

Hermes didn’t even seem to notice. “I have to thank you,” he said. “You saved my son.”

Percy— Damn, no, _Theo_ , remembered being on this very beach when this very god asked him to bring Luke back to him. He hadn’t thought he would succeed, and he had not.

He remembered Hermes’ rage at Annabeth for not saving Luke before his body had been taken over by Kronos. It was easy to blame others for your own failures.

He would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of those things at least a little when he set out on his quest to befriend Luke and free him from Kronos’ grasp. But he certainly hadn’t done it for the god’s praise.

“He was worth saving,” was all Theo said back.

The implication was clear; Theo could see that, as could Hermes.

“Yes,” Hermes nodded. “Yes.” Then he looked at Theo’s face and probably saw the judgement. “I tried,” he defended himself, “I gave him a quest.”

“A quest that had been done before,” Theo reminded him. “And a quest that didn’t need doing, so his friends died for nothing.” He sighed. Theo knew, if nothing else, that Hermes did love his son. “I know you tried. But that isn’t what heroes want, or what they need.”

“What does Luke need, then?” Hermes asked. Theo wasn’t sure if he wanted an actual answer, but he was going to get one.

“For you to claim all your unclaimed children in Cabin 11,” Theo said without hesitation, “so Luke doesn't have to look into the faces of his brothers and sisters that you are ignoring daily.”

Hermes blinked at him, like the thought that his son cared about his siblings had never occurred to him. It was almost a little insulting. Chris Rodrigues was so clearly barely holding it together. His state of mind wasn’t much better than Luke’s.

“You think Luke cares about that?”

“I think he _mostly_ cares about that,” Theo said. “No hero isn’t in it a little bit for the glory.” That was in their blood, in their ichor, maybe. “But Luke has to look at those kids every day. And it’s bad for all of them. But knowing that you’ll sponsor anyone, and won’t even claim some of your own kids, it weighs on him.” Then, because the truth was, he genuinely didn’t hate Hermes, he added, “I know you all do it, I’d tell them all the same thing. I have.”

Hermes considered that, but he didn’t ask about the time travel, not like Poseidon. But it was clear he got the meaning. He knew that Theo was no stranger to gods, that he wasn’t really scared of them.

“So, claim my children.” He said it so matter of factly that it was a little bit upsetting. Something so easily done but that he’d never bothered with before. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Theo said, “Luke needs to get out of here.” He raised his arms, encompassing the camp.

“No, he can’t. It's dangerous and he doesn’t—”

“I don’t mean his needs to be kicked out,” Theo said. “But he’s 19, everyone else his age goes to college during the year. He should at least be able to go to community college a few days a week or something.” Theo shrugged; he hadn’t given the idea much thought. 

He was about that age, too. Right before everything went wrong, he’d started to dream of the university in New Rome. Gaia had destroyed the city and the school. But that was okay; he’d never really thought he’d manage college anyway.

“I know he doesn’t— I know he can’t go to his mortal family,“ Theo had managed to sneak away and visit May Castellan once, during his year here. It had been incredibly sad, but he still wanted to go back, when he had a chance. “But he needs to see the real world, at least a little. You can’t protect him in the borders of camp forever.”

Hermes probably wouldn’t even take his advice. But whatever, no one could ever accuse Theo of not trying. Percy Jackson always tried, whatever he called himself.

Hermes nodded and made a few notes in his tablet. Then he fixed his eyes on Theo. They were so like Luke’s, it was unnerving.

Not least because they weren’t hostile.

“And what boon do you want, Percy Jackson, or Theo Blofis?” Theo jumped at the use of his old name twice in less than 12 hours. “For your services to me and my son?”

“I didn’t do it for a reward,” Theo said. “I did it because Luke was worth saving.” And because he was right, but his methods were wrong. And that Theo now understood a fiery hatred of the gods. “But I do find myself in need of a memory potion,” Theo admitted. “Something to take away a specific, recent memory, and not harm the recipient.”

Hermes’ eyes narrowed. “For my son?”

“No,” Theo shook his head. “Not for any of your children. I’d rather not talk about it, but I’m willing to tell you if you really want to know.”

He’d probably leave out the bit about not being on Poseidon’s side, but of everyone except maybe Apollo, surely Hermes would understand the dangers of a mortal knowing too much.

Hermes reached into his mail bag and pulled out a little vial. “I’m not god of magic, but this should do.” He considered Theo. “I will consider your advice, son of Poseidon. I believe I see why my son likes you so much. You might want to look away.”

Theo did, and he could feel when Hermes assumed his full, godly form before vanishing.

He slipped the memory potion in his pocket and arrived at the dining pavilion just as everyone was trickling into breakfast. 

The lonely Poseidon table was waiting for him. The Kid wasn’t awake yet. It had taken him months, last summer, to train himself not to head towards Cabin 3 in all things. And now he was having the opposite problem. 

He glanced over to the over-crowded Hermes table. He wondered what the children of Hermes would say if they knew he’d just spoken to their dad. He wonders what Luke would say if he told him his dad gave a damn. Nothing good, probably.

Luke already looked exhausted and the morning had barely even started. Theo watched him glance to his side, where Theo had sat everyday for over a year, and then up at and over, to where Theo sat alone at Cabin 3’s table. 

Theo gave his best smile. He’d been told it was charming. 

Luke didn’t return it, as though he could hear what Theo was thinking: that he looks just like his father. That thought would definitely make Luke frown. 

They held each other’s gaze. Theo trying to smile, Luke refusing. Luke’s anger was a constant threat. Not to Theo, not as a physical force, but for what it might inspire in him. He’d turned his back on Kronos once, but the Titan was still out there. And he must still be looking for some other hero for plots. Theo wouldn’t let him get Luke. 

But he wasn’t sure what to do about the defeated look in Luke’s eyes. He wanted to go to him, but Luke had a lot of rules about respectability and professionalism in front of his campers. A good morning kiss might have been fine, but attempts at comfort would have been pretty soundly rejected in front of everyone. 

It was one of Luke’s problems, Theo had learned. A great desire to seem strong at all times, in front of everyone. 

Maybe he and the Kid would skip activities today and go make Luke cookies, or something. Luke loved chocolate chip cookies as long as they were blue, so they wouldn’t remind him of home. 

He felt his smile become a little less forced at the thought. Luke didn’t break eye contact until there was a commotion from down the table. 

Theo turned towards the noise to see the glowing caduceus above Chris’s head. Hermes had claimed one of his unclaimed children. Theo hadn’t had any hope, not really. He’d demanded it as a great reward last time, and even for one god, even for a small handful of kids, it had seemed like too much. 

But Chris Rodriguez wasn’t going to be unclaimed and swept up into Kronos’s army by Luke, now. 

Theo smiled to himself as he kneeled with the rest of camp. 

He was still smiling, though the commotion had died down, when the Kid joined him. But he could still tell something was different in the air. 

“What happened?” he asked, biting in to toast coated with the same crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam as Theo’s. 

“Chris Rodriguez got claimed this morning,” Theo told him. “Just before you showed up.”

He glanced at Cabin 11’s table, where Chris was still sitting. 

“Who claimed him?”

“Hermes.” 

The Kid frowned. “But, he’ll just still be stuck in Cabin 11, won’t he? With all those people.”

Theo knew what he meant. It was hard, being stuck on the floor of Cabin 11 for a week, unclaimed and orphaned. Theo remembered. And the Kid had surely found out that Chris had been in Cabin 11 for two summers already. 

“It isn’t about having extra leg room,” Theo said. Poseidon’s cabin was free for the two of them, and for what Theo knew would be identical living habits. “It's about finding where you belong. And being seen by your dad.” Theo met his own eyes. “You understand that.” 

The Kid didn’t hold his gaze for long, but he nodded, before sighing deeply. “You know everything I’m thinking, don’t you.” 

“I know your thought processes,” Theo acknowledged, before lowering his voice quite a bit. “Because they’re mine. Or at least they were.” 

The Kid froze, even stopped his chewing. Then his mouth fell open, so the whole of camp could see mashed bread, peanut butter, and strawberries. Theo had no compunction about reaching over the table and physically shutting the Kid’s mouth. 

He’d thank him later. Annabeth was sitting with her siblings, but kept glancing their way. He would want to appear at least a little dignified in front of her. 

The thought of them, Percy and Annabeth together, filled Theo with a wave of sadness he wasn’t expecting. 

But here it was. They were here, the two of them. Almost thirteen and alive. The world was bright and possible for them. They didn’t have to shoulder the weight of the sky. They didn’t have to fall into Tartarus. Annabeth didn’t have to die. This Kid didn’t have to hold her in his arms and watch the life leave her eyes. 

He had hope. He had so much hope for them. So much hope for the future. Hermes was claiming his children, Poseidon would talk to his Roman sister, and Annabeth was alive. 

“I was wondering if it was all a dream,” the Kid admitted. 

“Nope,” Theo said, and held up a small bottle, shaking it a little. “But it can go away. This is a memory potion, it'll care of it.”

“What?" He asked, “No! You can't do that!”

“I can,” Theo said, “and more importantly, I should.” 

Breakfast was clearing up. Poseidon Cabin had morning activities. But no one was liable to care if they didn’t show up, and so Theo guided the kid back to Cabin 3. 

“You don’t want to know this,” he said as soon as he shut the door. “It’s dangerous.” 

“You don’t trust me?” The Kid scoffed. “I’m you.” 

12 year olds weren’t known for their self-reflection, apparently, because Theo barely trusted himself. His actual self. Himself-himself. The Theo-himself, let alone who he’d been at twelve. Who also didn’t actually trust himself. 

“It isn’t about trust,” Theo said, which was also true. “It isn’t dangerous because I think you’ll spill the secret.” That was true, too. “It's dangerous because knowing the future is dangerous.” 

“You know the future.” 

“No.” Theo shook his head. “I know what happened to me. Things have shifted in some ways and not in others. I only think I know the future. And the rule for that kind of knowledge is if you try and change things, it almost always comes back and bites you in the ass. I know you’re new here, but read your mythologies. Learn them. History is full of heroes who tried to fight their prophecies, to escape their fate. Normally it just made things worse.” 

“But—”

“And I’m trying anyway,” Theo said. “I’m trying to change things. I know I’ve changed things. Just being here changes things, and I’ve actively worked to change some other things. It's a dangerous, messy business, and it could very well blow up in my face.”

“Then why do it? You just said trying to change fate is impossible.”

“Well, I only know the future, not Fate. We have three of those for a reason.” He’d heard Zeus proclaim that, just before the battle had been lost. “There is wiggle room. I have to hope,” and maybe pray a little, to Hestia, “that I operate within that room. And also,” he didn’t want to tell the kid this, but he’d said some of it yesterday, with their Dad, “we lose. I don’t mean I lose. I mean the gods loose. I mean, I saw towns get swallowed up and Camp razed to the ground.” He could tell him. The Kid could take it, and he wouldn’t remember it anyway. “I saw people I know, friends, people I loved, people who are outside, doing their morning activities right now, die.” 

He could see Connor’s charred body in his mind. Clarisse’s head, smashed with a rock; he’d only known her from her armor. Jason drowned in mud. Reyna riddled with arrows. A spear through Hazel’s neck. Frank’s pristine body, except for a palm full of ash. And he could still feel Annabeth’s blood on his hands. “Olympus fell. The world ended. I can’t actually picture something worse,” he admitted. “So even if bad things happen. Well, that’s one Fate that can’t really get worse.”

The Kid just sat there silently for a long time.

“But I want to help,” he finally said. 

“I know,” Theo said, and he did. He knew deep in his bones that desire. He still felt it every day. “And you will. You’re part of this. We’re connected. I don’t know how. I only know what happened to me and some of that _can’t_ happen to you anymore.” He didn’t say that he wished in some ways he could spare the Kid all of it. It was true, but he wouldn’t appreciate it. Besides, all demigods wanted some glory, in addition to wanting to help. Even Theo and this Kid. It stung, sometimes, with all he’d done, being here and no one knowing his deeds. He’d held the sky and navigated the Labyrinth and Tartarus and no one could see it. He couldn’t claim it. 

As far as everyone was concerned, the Kid had completed more quests then him. 

But his reputation didn’t matter. Not here, not now, not anymore. 

Only saving what had been lost mattered. Annabeth, Luke, the Kid, everyone else here and at Camp Jupiter.

“But couldn’t I help more if I know?”

Theo shook his head. “Did you miss the part about knowing the future being dangerous?” He laughed. “More of us doing these things. I can go out of control so easily. Gods, Kid, the balancing act. It is a lot.”

“I can handle it.” 

“Of course you can,” Theo agreed. “But it isn’t a matter of can. It's a matter of should. You’re just a child.” 

“Well,” The Kid snapped back, “you’re just a teenager.” 

It was so simple when he said that. Like all that separated them was six years and not a thousand other great and terrible things. 

“Yeah,” Theo said simply, “but it's already too late for me. It doesn’t have to be too late for you. Not quite. Not yet.”

“But if I’m a part of it, you said so.”

“Kid,” Theo sighed. “You have a lot on your plate. And don’t say you don’t, because I know you. I know what you are going through. I know exactly what you are going through. You’re not free from this, from the squabblings of gods or the blood lust of monsters. You aren’t going to be free from the future, either. But I can make it so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Are you going to force me?” The Kid asked. 

“I can,” Theo answered honestly, because he had always hated being lied to, figuring out a world created by half-truths. “I can do a lot of things you can’t do yet, also, since I’m a foot taller than you. But I don’t want to.”

“What do you want?”

“For you to accept my help. And for you to understand that I don’t know everything that’s coming, but I do know a lot of things are. You need to be focused on the tasks at hand, not some maybes or might-bes.”

“Kronos,” The Kid said. “Kronos is coming.”

“Yes.”

“He arranged the thief of the lightning bolt, didn’t he?” The Kid looked up at Theo, and he had to work very very hard to keep his face blank.

“Yes,” Theo agreed. “It was different from what happened for me. I knew it was coming and tried to stop it. I didn’t manage that, only to shift the events.” Memory potion or not, he had no intentions of telling the Kid what Luke did, and what Theo and Luke had to do to put it right. 

He remembered still, being this Kid, sitting with Luke on the last day of summer and having his heart break. He didn’t know that’s what was happening at the time, of course. He’d thought it was the sting of betrayal. He thought it was poison of the scorpion. 

He knew better now. 

He had, at the very least, spared the Kid and Annabeth that. 

“You don’t need to be focused on what happened to me,” Theo said, “or what I’m shifting. You need to focus on the fact that Kronos is looking for heroes to do his work for him. He has to have heroes do it. And I’m sorry to say he’s taken an interest in you, and you’re going to be on the front lines.” 

“You know about the dreams.”

“I remember the dreams.” 

“But if I know what to look out for—”

“I need you to be clear-eyed,” Theo offered. “I am looking for things, but the danger in that is that sometimes you find patterns that aren’t there. Hyper-awareness is a curse as much as it's a blessing.” 

“You’re so smart, you’re so—” he flicked his hands at Theo, “everything. How can you really be me?”

“You’re me,” Theo said. “Anything I’ve ever done is something you could do too. Anything I am is something you’ll be one day.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for my self-confidence to know that?”

Theo laughed. “Wouldn’t you rather not have to worry about trying to live up to an arbitrary standard?” Then he sobered. “Please,” Theo said, _let me do this for you_. “Please,” _let me do this for me._

Finally, The Kid nodded. “It will help?”

“It will help.” Theo agreed. 

He sat on the bed next to the kid, on a bed he’d slept in for six years. Unused for sixty, save for a handful of nights. 

“You’ll still be in the cabin with me?”

“Totally, we’re going to win _all_ the canoe races and own at trireme practice.” Theo smiled. “I’m not going anywhere. Literally, I have nowhere else to go.” Except for the ocean, or a hundred problems he could go and try to solve early. But he couldn’t leave everyone here. “We’ll work more on your sword fighting. We’ll work on your powers. We’re in this together. I promise.”

The Kid nodded. “You don’t have a home. But your mom is my mom.” 

“I know you saw her in the city,” Theo said. “Is she alright?”

“She wouldn’t let me kill Gabe.” 

Theo grimaced. “Give it a few weeks,” he said, dead serious this time. He’d thought it over the last several months. “If it's still a problem, we’ll leave camp and take care of him. Mom won’t like it, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think we’ll need to, but he’d not be a problem anymore.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Every day,” Theo admitted. He felt that potion vial in his pocket. “That’s something I wish I could forget, sometimes, too.” 

“I’ll take it,” The Kid said. “I’ll do it. If it will help. And—” _And because it's too much, and I don’t want to know all the terrible things that will happen to me,_ he didn’t say. But Theo always knew what the Kid was thinking. How could he not. 

“I know,” Theo said. “It's better this way.” 

He handed the vial over. 

The kid uncorked it and downed it in one go. 

For a moment, nothing happened. He looked at the vial and then at Theo, a frown on his face. “I still re—” He was cut off mid sentence by his eyes falling shut, and then his whole body falling onto Theo. 

After making sure he was just sleeping, Theo tucked him into bed. 

It was strange, this kid who was him, but not quiet, but very much so. 

And he would be here for him. For swords and powers, and anything else. 

But he didn’t really feel like just waiting in here while he slept. Theo tucked the empty vial with his things and left the kid to his sleep. 

Honestly, after the quest and post-quest excitement, he probably needed it, even without the potion. 

So he strapped Annabeth’s drakon bone sword to his belt and went out to see what was up on a normal Tuesday at camp. 

He loved bright sunny days at camp. Not that they ever had rainy days, at least not now that the lightning bolt was back with Zeus. They made him think of his own first summer. Those glorious days between returning from his quest and that last, terrible day when Luke tried to kill him. When he was running on a high of returning from his quest, his mother being alive, and the new reality of his life hadn’t made itself known. 

He didn’t want to delve too deeply into his own psychology, but that memory just made him think of Luke, and thinking of Luke made him want to be with Luke. 

Hermes had music on Tuesday mid-mornings. It was only ever popular with unclaimed kids who hoped a spot of brilliance might label them as an Apollo kid and get them noticed or by someone who wanted to make particularly loud and particularly bad noise. 

But because it didn’t require too much supervision, and had only resulted in one explosion during Theo’s entire time at camp, it also meant that Luke used it as a time to get some of his counselor duties done. 

It had been less than 24 hours since Theo was “claimed” and he hadn’t talked to Luke about it at all. 

Yesterday had been too much worry and excitement for it to really sink in, but last night had been the first time in a year he’d not gone to sleep on the floor next to Luke’s bed. 

It was a sad thought. 

He stood on the steps of the Hermes Cabin for what couldn’t be more than a minute or two, but it felt like a very long time. He’d liked it inside. He knew why the children of the minor gods felt disrespected, why the unclaimed felt forgotten, and he hated it. But Theo had arrived at camp perfectly secure in who he was, and so among the largest group, he’d found a great deal of comfort. 

Luke would be reviewing reports inside, and Theo needed to see him. But he couldn’t help being worried about what his reaction might be. 

He knocked on the door to make his presence known, but just went inside. Just like he expected, Luke was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a stack of papers in front of him. He looked the same as always: camp shirt, cargo shorts, sandals. The yellow of his hair was peaking out beneath the blue, and Theo wondered if it would be pushing his luck to get him to dye it again. 

Theo had expected Luke to look up when he walked in. He wasn’t expecting the grin on his face when he saw Theo. 

“Hey,” Luke said, “I was just thinking I’d go try and find you.” He practically bounded off his bed and across the crowded floor to Theo in the entryway.

He wrapped his arms around Theo, a little too tight, a little possessive. 

Theo tended to like that. It made him feel real and present. He wasn’t just a lost soul drifting through the past by himself. 

Luke sought a kiss too. Long and deep. He bit just a little at Theo’s lips, but unlike sometimes, there was no ferociousness to it. A few playful nips, as his hands felt up Theo’s flanks. 

The door to Cabin 11 was still open beside them, and it was more than Luke ever normally wanted to do with even the potential of the audience. 

Luke broke the kiss only for air, and he rested his scarred cheek next to Theo’s as they both panted just a little. 

When Luke actually pulled away from him, keeping their hands clasped together, he was still grinning. 

“You missed all the excitement,” he said. 

“I saw Chris at breakfast,” Theo assured him. 

“Yeah, I know,” Luke said, “but it didn’t stop with him.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know! Lulu and Wendell both got claimed too. This morning, when we were walking to the rock wall. That’s three in one morning, all by Hermes.” He sounded like he couldn’t believe it, and Theo could barely believe it either. “Dad must be having a good day or something.”

Lulu Nester and Wendell Rhodes had Hermes’ smile and eyes, just like Luke. Those two and Chris were the only three Cabin 11 members whose parentage was speculated to _be_ Hermes. 

And now it wasn’t speculation at all. 

Hermes had actually listened to his advice on how to help Luke. And Luke’s delighted laugh as he recounted the story, including Chris’ claiming again, was proof enough that it was doing just that. 

“It’s awesome,” Luke repeated. “Everyone’s so happy and just, all of them today!”

“I’m happy too,” Theo promised. Luke’s grin was infectious. “For them and for you.”

Luke looked down. “It isn’t about me.”

“Babe,” the endearment was only a little stilted on his tongue, “you live to be a big brother. I know you’re excited about your new siblings.”

“They were always my siblings,” Luke corrected, but he was still smiling. “But it is nice to be able to actually claim them.” 

Theo squeezed his hand, and Luke squeezed back, tighter even than when they had discovered the grove in the woods, but with none of the fear or reservation there. 

“Speaking of literally all of this,” Luke said. His smile fell, just a little bit, his brow creasing in worry, “I didn’t get to talk to you last night. But you got claimed too, and got yourself a little brother. How’s that?”

“Cabin 3 might have too much space,” Theo said. 

“I missed you last night,” Luke admitted. “Beside me, and also, because you’re the only one who can get Maya and Aime to settle down during lights out.” Maya Gate and Aime Cartier were 9 and 10, daughters of Hermes, and, having arrived at camp after having previously been only children, were now inseparable. And they treated every night in Cabin 11 like a slumber party. Their excitable chatter was always a low-level buzz. 

“I miss everyone, too,” Theo said. The truth was, he hadn’t actually had the chance to miss them yet, short of breakfast, but he knew it was coming. “And I miss you.” 

“I’ll bet,” Luke said. “But be honest, it's nice to have your place.”

Theo forced a smile. He didn’t have a place, not really. The Kid had a place, and Theo was a leftover loose end from a future that he would prevent at all costs. 

“It feels like home,” he said, and only in speaking did he realize it was true. It was strange and uncentering. It stripped away all the transitory anonymity of the Cabin. But it was still home. 

Luke kissed him. “I’m glad,” he said. “And I’m glad you are officially a head camper. I can split some of this junk with you.”

“I think that seems fair. If this week has shown us anything, it's that we're a pretty good team.”

That might be the great revelation of this entire terrible adventure, starting with him showing up six years in the past: his and Luke’s compatibility. Not romantically, really. He’d not noticed his own immature, confused, twelve year old feelings, but he could see them now. But that the camaraderie he’d had before the attack at the end of the first summer hadn’t all been an illusion. He and Luke could come together and make things happen. 

They’d successfully managed Cabin 11 together. They’d successfully managed to frame Ares for the theft of the Lightning Bolt. 

“Are we still admitting to that?” Luke asked. 

“To each other, and only each other,” Theo said. “I don’t want to be vaporized, or turned into lions or something.” 

“I think you’d make a handsome lion,” Luke offered. 

“You probably would too,” Theo admitted. “You know, as long as you got a blue mane out of the deal.” 

Here in this moment, with Luke, laughing together, he wanted to tell him everything. Or anything. 

The truth about himself or the future or the nightmares that plagued him. The dangers of Kronos and the evils of Gaia. That once Luke had tried to destroy him, over and over again, and now he was one of the things that gave him hope. 

But just one. Because Chris and Lulu and Wendell had been claimed because Hermes had listened to him. Because Percy Jackson was here and Annabeth was alive. 

Fate always came to pass, but there was not only one path forward. 

Luke would not try to kill The Kid when the summer ended. He wouldn’t recruit Chris to his demigod army. 

Theo wanted to share. 

But he held his tongue. 

Or, more precisely, he shoved it down Luke’s throat, and then got the absolute pleasure of seeing Luke turn bright red when Little Maya and Aime and Lulu caught them, having come with a set of reed pipes, ready to share their newly ‘mastered’ version of Hilary Duff’s _So Yesterday_ with their older brother.

Despite the embarrassment, Theo and Luke listened to the concert. Hand in hand, Luke’s body pressed against Theo’s side. When they were done, both boys clapped vigorously and proclaimed it some of the finest music they’d ever heard, clearly inspired by the Muses themselves. 

They all made their way to the dining pavilion together, Aime hanging off of Theo, and Lulu not wanting to let go of her newly claimed brother. 

All three of the girls protested when Theo made to break with them. And even Luke looked like he was on the verge of a pout. 

Lunch was pretty lonely too, but he was in a better mood. He could see Chris, Lulu, and Wendell’s smiles, as wide as Luke’s, from his vantage point. He burned some baked beans for his dad, but sent the french fries Hermes' way. He hoped they got to the god, and not the fallen altar in Tartarus. 

Despite it being lonely, he was glad the kid hadn’t shown up. He hoped he was still asleep, because he wanted to figure out just what the memory potion had done before he inflicted the rest of camp on the Kid. 

Theo did pack away a grilled cheese sandwich for him later, then returned to the Poseidon Cabin. 

He could still smell the faint whiff of smoke beneath the ocean breeze. His packs of cigarettes were still under one of the unused beds. He wouldn’t be able to come here and smoke anymore, which was kind of a bummer. It had been almost meditative, a few minutes alone, to center himself in this brave new world.

But it would set a bad example for the Kid. 

Maybe he’d go to the beach or something now, or even out into the ocean. He could keep the ash from polluting anything. 

He wanted to smoke now, but he knew the Kid would be able to smell it. So he dug out the book he’d borrowed from a reluctant Chiron. _Aeneid_ , in the original Latin. It was one of the things he’d been working on through the year. 

He’d never been a year-round camper. Everything was slower, less structured. He’d been focused mostly on his goal. He’d grown close to Luke partly in a deliberate effort to save him, but also because he knew he needed to improve his swordsmanship and there was no better teacher than Luke. But there was an expectation that they did something academic. After about a month of destroyed practice dummies, vaguely judgemental eyes and Luke taking him aside and quietly asking if he wanted to talk about his time ‘outside’ and the girl he’d lost there, Theo had decided too much over zealous training was liable to get him attention he didn’t want. So he committed himself to improving his Latin, among a few other things. 

It got him raised looks from Chiron and Mr. D, and a couple of jokes about his old Legion tattoo from his fellow campers, not nothing more than that. 

He could mostly make his way through the language of the poem, and it was interesting to compare it to the Iliad and the Odyssey.

So Theo read it while he waited for the Kid to wake up. 

He stirred just as the refugee Trojans reached mainland Italy. 

“Theo?” And it was always strange to hear his fake name on the Kid’s lips. “What are you doing here?” 

“You really needed sleep,” Theo said, forcing a smile before the lie. “If you can’t remember, I got claimed last night. So we are officially cabin mates.” 

He sat up, still in his morning camp clothes, but with his inky hair a mess. 

Unfortunately for him, that was not going to improve. 

He frowned at Theo. “I don’t remember—”

“You had a big day, and you were pretty out of it last night,” Theo said. “Do you remember getting back from your quest, and going to Olympus?”

The Kid’s frown deepened and Theo’s heart sank. He had not wanted to erase the thrill of victory or meeting Dad from his memory.

“Yeah,” the Kid finally said. “Yeah, I met my dad. On the beach?” He frowned again. “No, he was at Olympus. I met my dad.” He looked at Theo. “And your dad, too.” 

“Yep,” Theo nodded. “I suspect a lot of money changed hands last night.”

“So you _are_ a son of Poseidon, too,” the Kid said. He knew about the pact, and the prophecy. “Uncle Zeus is going to be mad, two of us. He only had one kid. And Hades too.”

“I’m hoping that getting claimed means Poseidon got a response to that,” Theo said. And if he didn't, well, Theo might drop a hint about Jason Grace, though he’d probably leave out the di Angelos in Nevada. He wanted, just for a second, to ask the Kid if he’d seen them at the hotel. “Or at least that claiming both of us are worth the potential issues.” 

Hermes and Hestia knew what he was, at least. What that meant for the rest of the Olympians remained to be seen. Dionysus seemed not to know. But he’d let that all be Poseidon’s problem for now. 

The Kid looked around the cabin. “You choose that bunk?”

“I figured after Cabin 11, there was no shame in a little space,” Theo said. “But don’t worry, I also think we’ll be good roommates.” It was probably going to mean a lot of threes on cabin inspections, but that was ok. The two of them would be worth bargaining for in an alliance in capture the flag, and they could get some good shower privileges that way. Or they could jump in the lake. 

“So—” The potion was clearly doing something with the Kid’s head, but he seemed as sharp as ever, just discombobulated for a moment. “That means we’re brothers, right?”

Theo fought against his own frown. 

No. 

No.

 _No_ , Theo— Percy, wanted to say. We are not brothers. That would be simple. That would be easy. You’re a ghost and I’m from a lost future. You’re a kid, and I’m whatever happens when you have to grow up too fast. I’m what you shouldn’t have to see. I’m here to help you, to save you. 

“Yeah,” he said instead, after swallowing a dozen other responses. “I guess we are.”

“I’ve never had an older brother before,” the Kid said. But he wasn’t frowning now. He was starting to smile. 

“I’ve—” What did Theo even say? He’d had Tyson, but that wasn’t really the same thing at all. He’d loved Tyson and Tyson loved him, but Tyson had known exactly who he was as a person, a cyclops. He wasn’t like the cabin siblings Theo had once observed from a far. He’d had brothers in arms: Frank, Nico, Jason, Leo, Beckendorf, all his other friends at camp. He’d watched all of them die, or else found their bodies in the aftermath of battle. All but Nico, at least, who’d still been alive before Theo had found himself on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. They’d built Annabeth’s pyre together, and Nico had performed the funeral rites with tears in his eyes. Once he’d heard that Nico had a crush on Annabeth. At the time, he didn’t have it in him to care about anyone else’s feelings for her, but a year later, he wondered at it. 

All of that was ancient history now. And even in a place steeped in ancient history, like Camp Half-Blood, it felt so disconnected to him now. 

“I’ve never had a little brother either,” he said. He wasn’t sure if it was true. But he’d never had this. He’d definitely never had this. 

Theo was good at figuring out the Kid. At knowing what he was going to do and why he was going to do it. He’d just managed to save his whole quest that way. But he didn’t expect him to jump out of bed and practically tackle Theo in a hug.

Theo’d had heavy, people-shaped objects hurl themselves at his chest before, so he managed to keep his footing. But it took him a long time to return the hug. 

He’d never been on the receiving end of his own hug before. The kid’s hug before his quest had been quick and to the point. This was nice. Strong and sure. He wondered if he could still hug with this much affection, or if that had been burned out of him. 

“I’m glad _you’re_ my brother,” the Kid said. “I wouldn’t want it to be anyone else at camp.”

Theo patted his back awkwardly. He was so much shorter than Theo; he wouldn’t even be a proper teenager for well over a month. 

He was in unfamiliar territory. What would he have wanted in an older brother when he was this kid?

Someone kind. Someone helpful. Someone knowledgeable. Someone smart. Someone who knew what the hell was going on. Someone who would have his back. Someone who’d look at him and see more than a long line of expulsions and a very young single mother. 

Theo swallowed and closed his eyes. He was pretty sure he couldn’t be everything this Kid needed, even though he knew exactly what that was. 

He’d try to guide him, and he’d always have his back. And he’d have to hope that would be enough. 

And he’d make sure Percy always knew that he was a good kid who got dealt a shitty hand. 

“I’m glad you’re my brother,” he said. “We’ll have each other’s backs.” 

The Kid stepped away, grinning like mad. “Totally. This is going to be great. Sons of Poseidon, against the world. We’ll train and you can teach me everything you know about water powers and swords and—” His eyes lit up. “I even got a better sword. Did I show you yesterday?” 

He didn’t wait for a response, just reached into his pocket and pulled out an ordinary looking ballpoint pen.

The sight of it might have hurt Theo, but Theo saw Annabeth Chase, Selina Beaurgard, and the Stoll Brothers every day. 

The Kid uncapped it with an unpracticed flourish, and held the _xiphos_ in his hand. A natural, easy fit for him.

“ _Anaklusmos_ ,” Theo said, without having to read the inscription. “She’s a beauty,” he said with a smile. “Just what you need.”

“Bad things are coming,” the Kid said, “I— well, I need to get better. We need to be ready.”

Theo put his hand on the Kid’s shoulder. “I know. Like you said, sons of Poseidon against the world. We can do this, together.” 

He’d told the Kid this morning that he intended to alter fate, even if he couldn’t completely defy it, and he would. 

Luke had not fallen under Kronos’ spell. Chris Rodriguez wouldn’t join his army in despair. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase were safe and alive at camp, and had time and people to help them to where they’d need to be, eventually. 

Theseus Blofis squeezed Percy Jackson’s shoulder. 

“Come one, Brother,” he said. “We have work to do.” 

He picked up a dead girl’s sword, and led the way to the training arena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hope we've adequately explained what's going on. Please comment or feel free to reach out!

**Author's Note:**

> Check us out on tumblr: [ Darkmagyk](http://darkmagyk.tumblr.com/) and [Loosingletters](https://jasontoddiefor.tumblr.com/).


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